The International Society of Environmental Geotechnology (ISEG) Webinar Series was successfully launched on April 7th, 2022. The first speaker of this webinar series was Prof. D.N. Singh, Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi and Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Geotechnics. More than 100 attendees participated in this event, including ISEG President Prof. Bin Shi and ISEG Secretary General Professor Chao-Sheng Tang.
First, Prof. Chao-Sheng Tang, on behalf of Prof. Bin Shi, welcomed the guests and delegates, and briefly introduced the background and significance of the initiation of ISEG Webinar Series (Figure 1). This is a new brand event, in which distinguished experts and scholars in environmental geotechnology in and out the society will be invited to report on the cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations in the field, aiming to widely promote exchanges and cooperation in the frontier fields of environmental geotechnology. Then, Professor Tang introduced the biography of Prof. D.N. Singh. Professor Singh is from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT, Bombay). His teaching, and research and developmental activities are in quite diversified areas of geotechnical engineering (for example., soil mechanics, foundation engineering, environmental geotechnology, mechanics of unsaturated soils, etc.). He has published more than 320 technical papers and applied for 34 patents. He is the founding Editor-in-chief of Environmental Geotechnics, fellow of ASCE and ICE, and vice-president of ISEG.
Figure 1 Welcome speech by Prof. Chao-Sheng Tang
Subsequently, Prof. Singh started his report entitled “ENVIRONMENTAL GEOTECHNOLOGY: THE WAY FORWARD” (Figure 2). Based on his research experience, he reviewed the development history of environmental geotechnology from 1988 to the present, and pointed out that the main research in the field of environmental geotechnical engineering in the past was the performance and response of Geomaterials to external stimuli (fluxes). The 17 sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations in 2015 have profoundly affected the development of environmental geotechnology. Focusing on sustainable development goals, he believes that the future frontier directions of environmental geotechnology include Neo-materials, Emerging contaminants, Fire and its influence on geomaterials properties, Iot/AI/ML in environmental geotechnology, Coupled phenomena, Bio-geo interface in multiphase porous media, Pandemic/disaster/DESTRUCTION Management, Mining/mineral processing and Geoenvironment, Infrastructures on challenging geomaterials/Deposits, etc. After the presentation, several participants had a lively discussion with Prof. Singh on issues of interest.
Figure 2 Prof. D.N. Singh in presentation
In the end, Prof. Tang gave a brief summary of the event. He thanked Prof. Singh for his wonderful presentation, and thanked all the guests for their participation. He said that as the first speaker, Prof. Singh made a perfect start to the ISEG Webinar Series. In the future, this event will be held periodically. He welcomes everyone to continue to participate in this event and work together to promote the development of environmental geotechnology.
The video record of the whole event can be found on ISEG official Youtube Channel and ISEG official Bilibili Channel.
