NPTEL – Civil – Geoenvironmental Engineering

Module 1
FUNDAMENTALS OF GEOENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING

A) Scope of geoenvironmental engineering

Any project that deals with the interrelationship among environment,
ground surface and subsurface (soil, rock and groundwater) falls under the
purview of geoenvironmental engineering (Fang and Daniels 2006). The scope is
vast and requires the knowledge of different branches of engineering and
science put together to solve the multi-disciplinary problems. A geoenvironmental
engineer should work in an open domain of knowledge and should be willing to
use any concepts of engineering and science to effectively solve the problem at
hand. The most challenging aspect is to identify the unconventional nature of the
problem, which may have its bearing on multiple factors. For example, an
underground pipe leakage may not be due to the faulty construction of the pipe
but caused due to the highly corrosive soil surrounding it. The reason for high
corrosiveness may be attributed to single or multiple manmade factors, which
need to be clearly identified for the holistic solution of the problem. The
conventional approach of assessing the material strength of the pipe alone will
not solve the problem at hand.
A lot of emphasis has been laid for achieving a “green environment”.
Despite a lot of effort, it is very difficult to cut off the harmful effects of pollutants
disposed off into the geoenvironment. The damage has already been done to the
subsurface and ground water resources, which is precious. An effective waste
containment system is one of the solutions to this problem. However, such a
project has different socio-economic and technical perspectives. The realization
of such projects require the contribution of environmentalist, remote sensing
experts, decision makers, common public during its planning stage, hydrologists,
geotechnical engineers for its execution stage and several experts for
management and monitoring of the project. The totality of the problem can be

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visualized under the umbrella of geoenvironmental engineering. Therefore, the

real challenge for a geoenvironmental engineer is how well he can integrate the
multi-disciplinary knowledge for achieving an efficient waste containment.
As mentioned earlier, in most parts of the world, damage has already
been done to the geoenvironment and groundwater reserves due to
indiscriminate disposal of industrial and other hazardous wastes. Owing to the
excessive demand, it becomes important to remediate and revive the already
polluted geoenvironment and groundwater. A geoenvironmental engineer has a
great role to play for deciding the scheme of such remediation practice. A lot of
concepts from soil physics, soil chemistry, soil biology, multi-phase flow, material
science and mathematical modelling, need to be taken for planning and
execution of an efficient remediation strategy. Therefore, it is essential for the
geoenvironmental engineer to think out of the box, to an extent that the
knowledge can help him visualize the problem better and suggest efficient
solution. Else, the solution to such problems becomes a trial and error process or
rather, learn from mistakes and rectify. Since such projects are cost intensive
one cannot afford to take too much of chances.
Another important issue is the reuse and recycling of waste materials,
which reduces the burden on our environment manifold. A very good example is
exploring the possibility of mass utilization of fly ash for geotechnical
applications. However, while using waste materials for meaningful applications
there are issues such as short term and long term impact, which is a governing
factor for deciding its selection as a viable material. Although, short term
behavior can be assessed using planned laboratory evaluations it often becomes
difficult and complex for understanding the long term behavior. The scope of
geoenvironmental engineering is to simplify the process of understanding the
behavior and resort to reliable predictions and estimations. This would require a
thorough knowledge on material science and chemistry and the reaction it
undergoes with time. This is indeed a tough task, but needless to say, such
challenges make this subject quite interesting.

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The frequent occurrence of landslides especially during rainy season has

drawn the attention of researchers and practicing engineers. The conventional
slope stability analysis is partially helpful in understanding the problem. A wider
perspective of the problem would be to include factors such as infiltration and
seepage of rain water through the slope. Such factors are going to add on to the
instability of slope. The scope and challenge for the geoenvironmental engineer
is to couple the geotechnical, geological and hydrologic concepts to explain
rainfall induced slope failure. Construction of flood protection works such as
embankments and levees also comes under the purview of geoenvironmental
engineering. Unless a thorough hydraulic study is conducted, any geotechnical
measures for flood protection would prove to be futile. This is specifically true for
large rivers and for meandering sections.
Geoenvironmental engineering is more research oriented and new
concepts and methodologies are still being developed. Therefore, this particular
course intends to introduce different avenues and overall scope of
geoenvironmental engineering to the reader. The course would highlight the
uncertainties and complexities involved and the wide research potential of the
subject. Special emphasis has been laid on the basics of soil-water interaction,
soil-water-contaminant interaction, which are essential for understanding the
impact of geoenvironmental contamination, its minimization and remediation.

B) Multiphase behavior of soil

Conventional or classical soil mechanics assumes soil media to be
completely water or air saturated. This is a typical example of a two phase media
consisting of soil solids and water/air. The assumption of two phases
considerably simplifies the mathematical quantification of the complex
phenomena that take place in porous media. Off late, geotechnical and
geoenvironmental engineering problems require the concept of three or
multiphase behaviour of soil for realistic solution of several field situations. For
example, a partially saturated soil is a three phase porous media consisting of
air, water and soil. The three phases result in transient and complex behaviour of

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unsaturated soil. Such cases are encountered while designing waste

containment facility where flow characteristics of unsaturated soil need to be
determined. When it comes to soil-water-contaminant interaction there are multi-
phase interactions involved. The migration of non-aqueous phase liquid (denoted
as NAPL) through porous media is a typical example. Fluidized bed, debris flow,
slurry flow, gas permeation through unsaturated soil media are some problems
where multiphase behaviour becomes important. Such studies are handy while
designing remediation scheme for contaminated soil and groundwater, which are
very important issues for the geoenvironmental engineer to solve. Understanding
the complex interaction of different phases is challenging and has paved way for
the study of multiphase behaviour of porous media. Such a realization has
generated a lot of interest in the research fraternity for developing experimental
and mathematical procedures for clearly delineating the phenomena in
multiphase porous media.

C) Role of soil in geoenvironmental applications

All civil engineering structures are ultimately founded on soil and hence its
stability depends on the geotechnical properties of soil. Conventional
geotechnology is more concerned about rendering soil as an efficient load
bearing stratum and designing foundations that can transfer load efficiently to
subsurface. Apart from this, soil is directly related to a number of environmental
problems, where the approach should be a bit different. Consider the case of
groundwater recharge as shown in Fig. 1.1. The infiltration and permeation
property of homogenous or layered soil mass above water table decides the rate
of recharge. In this case, a geotechnical engineer has to work closely with
hydrogeologists for deciding different schemes of artificial groundwater recharge.

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Precipitation

Artificial recharge

Aquifer

Groundwater

Bed rock

Fig. 1.1 Artificial groundwater recharge

Consider the case of waste dumped on ground surface. During

precipitation, water interacts with these wastes and flow out as leachate. When
the leachate flows down, soil act as buffer in retaining or delaying several harmful
contaminants from reaching groundwater. Such a buffering action obviously
depends on the texture and constituents of soil mass. While designing a waste
containment facility, the role of soil in such projects is enormous. A coarse
grained soil with filter property is required for leachate collection where as a fine
grained soil is required for minimizing flow of leachate. These are two entirely
different functions expected from soil in the same project. The cap provided for
waste dumps also necessitate the use of specific type of soils with the required
properties. The amount of water that infiltrates into the waste below is minimized
by soil used in such caps. Special type of high swelling soils is used as backfills
for storing high level radioactive waste in deep geological repositories. Another
important geoenvironmental problem, namely, carbon sequestration uses the
geological storage capacity for disposal of anthropogenic CO2 to mitigate the
global warming. Therefore, soil plays a very vital role in geoenvironmental
projects and the property by which it becomes important is problem-specific.

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D) Importance of soil physics, soil chemistry,

hydrogeology and biological process
Soil physics is the study of the physical properties and physical processes
occurring in soil and its relation to agriculture, engineering and environment. It
deals with physical, physico-chemical and physico-biological relationship among
solid, liquid and gaseous phase of soil as they are affected by temperature,
pressure and other forms of energy. Hence, the knowledge of soil physics
becomes important for solving geoenvironmental problems. The concepts of soil
physics is used for determining the transport of water, solute and heat (matter
and energy) through porous media, which is important to solve the problems
related to subsurface hydrology, groundwater pollution, water retention
characteristics of soil, improving crop production, rainfall induced landslides etc.
Soil physics is mostly quantitative and mathematical in nature and requires the
knowledge of soil physical properties. The important soil physical properties
include soil texture which deals with the particle gradation; soil water which
include mechanisms such as retention, infiltration, run off, permeation,
evaporation, transpiration, irrigation scheduling etc; soil aeration to take into
account exchange of gases such as oxygen and carbondioxide by plant roots
and microorganisms present in the soil. While defining these physical properties
of soil, it is very important to consider representative elementary volume (REV)
which is required to describe or lump the physical properties at a geometrical
point (Scott 2000). REV therefore describes mean property of the volume under
consideration.
Soil chemistry is the study of chemical characteristics of the soil and is
one of the important information required for many of the geoenvironmental
problems. The emergence of discipline “soil chemistry” began when J. T. Way
(father of soil chemistry) realized that soil could retain cations such as NH 4+, K+ in
exchange for equivalent amounts of Ca+2 (Thomas 1977). This means that soils
act as ion exchangers. This aspect is vital for using soil in waste management
application. The contaminants leaching out of the waste dumps find its way to

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groundwater flowing past the soil porous media. The concentration of

contaminant at a distance away from the source for a given time is fully governed
by the chemical interaction of contaminant and the soil. There are several simple
and complex chemical reactions that may take place in soil-water system
depending upon the prevailing favourable condition. An example is the
phenomenon of solubility and precipitation as governed by the pH of the soil-
water-contaminant system. The knowledge of soil chemistry is important to
understand interactions between soil solids, precipitates and pore water,
including ion exchange, adsorption, weathering, buffering, soil colloidal
behaviour, acidic and basic soils, salinity etc. There is an interesting story which
resulted in the effects of soil acidity and alkalinity. The investigation on poor crop
productivity in eastern United States in early 1800’s lead to the understanding of
high soil acidity, which was regulated by the addition of lime. This resulted in high
yield of crops. Similarly the deleterious condition of soil due to high alkalinity was
realized and investigated in detail. After 1920’s the understanding on structural
soil chemistry and soil organic chemistry improved a lot. The acidity and
complexation potential of organic matter was appraised. A lot of chemists
researched on the structure and reactivity of water on soil mineral surface. These
and many other findings lead to the development of soil chemistry and today it is
one of the important branches of science required to explain several phenomena
in geoenvironmental engineering.
Understanding subsurface for geoenvironmental problems requires
extensive knowledge of hydrogeology. Hydrogeologic parameters influence a lot
on how a waste containment facility performs over its design life. Therefore, while
deciding the location for such facility it is important that the subsurface
hydrogeology condition is fully explored and studied. Different in-situ
methodologies are used for remediation of a contaminated site. For effective
functioning of such methods one has to study the hydrogeological aspects of the
site. Hydrogeologists play a vital role in locating groundwater aquifer, its
management and optimal extraction. Efficient watershed management by
artificial recharge is possible only if the hydrogeology of a particular area is

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known. The knowledge of hydrogeology is also required for understanding the

direction of groundwater flow. This is often required for assessing the extent of
contamination occurring due to a particular source of pollution and for risk
assessment.
Off late a lot of emphasis is laid on biological processes occurring in soils.
Initially, agriculturists were more bothered about this subject. But the subject has
caught the attention of many researchers due to its potential in solving different
geoenvironmental problems. For example, some type of microorganisms such as
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is used for remediation of hydrocarbon contaminated
site. It is very essential to understand the rate of such reaction and the impact of
such remediation. A lot of researchers worldwide are working on this interesting
problem. Biological process in soils is dependent on temperature and climatic
condition of a place, which need to be studied in detail. The soil biological
process is found to influence the exchange of greenhouse gases between soil
and atmosphere and many other soil physical parameters such as water
retention characteristics.

E) Sources and type of ground contamination

Solid, liquid and gaseous waste forms contaminates subsurface and
groundwater due to indiscriminate disposal. Solid wastes come from municipal,
domestic and industrial sources. Municipal wastes amounts to around 50 percent
of the total wastes produced. Household, hospital, agricultural wastes forms part
of municipal wastes. Returning these wastes to soil is considered to be a low
cost option. Abandoned e-waste, batteries, vehicles, furniture, debris from
construction industry is considered as solid waste and is produced from both
urban and rural areas. Large scale industrial development produces huge
quantities of hazardous waste and the sources are iron and steel industries,
packaging factories, paints, dyes, chemicals, glass factories, fertilizer and
pesticide industries, mine excavation waste etc. Coal mining, radioactive fuel
mining, petroleum mining and thermal power plants generate hazardous solid
waste that requires effective management.

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The main source and type of hazardous liquid waste include industrial
waste water contained in surface impoundments, lagoons or pits. It is also
produced from municipal solid refuse and sludge that are disposed on land. If not
handled properly sewage becomes an important source of liquid waste that has
undesirable effect on environment. Petroleum exploration leaves waste brine
solution which needs to be managed to prevent groundwater pollution. Liquid
waste emerges due to mining operation which is hazardous. A typical example is
acid mine drainage from dumped mine wastes.
Some of the gaseous waste includes NOx, CO, SO2, volatile
hydrocarbons etc. Chemical reaction may take place in air producing secondary
pollutants. SO2 combines with oxygen to produce SO3, which in turn combines
with suspended water droplets to produce H2SO4 and fall on ground as acid rain.
Natural breakdown of uranium in the geoenvironment emits cancer causing
radon gas into atmosphere.

F) Impact of contamination on geoenvironment

In most of the cases, wastes are disposed off indiscriminately in low-lying
areas without taking adequate engineering measures to effectively contain it.
This results in a highly unhygienic and unhealthy environment leading to
breeding of pests, mosquitoes and several harmful microorganisms. Many of the
emerging diseases found these days are direct impact of geoenvironmental
contamination due to wastes. During precipitation, or groundwater coming in
contact with these wastes generates contaminated water called leachate that can
travel far field and pollute the surface and groundwater resources. Many of the
harmful heavy metals can also travel along with the leachate if it is not contained
properly. Some of the solid waste such as excavation and mining waste, fly ash
(wet and dry) from thermal power plants requires large area of land for its storage
as wastes. This in turn would interact with rain water and can cause
contamination. Several harmful heavy metals well above the contamination limit
can enter the life cycle of organisms living in close proximity with such disposal
sites.

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One of the complexities of contamination impact is its long term effects

without a chance for realization. Most of the impacts are realized much later from
rigorous studies, and by the time the damage would have been done. Hence,
remediation becomes a tedious and cost-intensive affair. This makes
geoenvironmental engineering a challenging and much needed subject. There is
a need to focus on research that would help to predict and minimize the long
term impact of indiscriminate and mismanaged waste contamination.

G) Case histories on geoenvironmental problems

Use of readily available local soil instead of expensive
commercial soil (like bentonite) for waste management
Engineered waste management scheme necessitates the construction of
highly impermeable barrier so that waste disposed on it does not find its way to
ground water resources. Mostly these barriers are made of high plastic clays
which are commercially available. This would considerably increase the cost of
such geoenvironmental projects. Exploring the possibility of using local soils for
such applications, therefore, becomes an important geoenvironmental problem.
Any success in this direction would add to the economy of the project. This in
turn would result in sustainable development of such very important project. The
following research paper is an excellent case history of finding solution to one of
the geoenvironmental problems.
Taha and Kabir (2005) have explored the possibility of using tropical
residual soil for waste containment, which is readily available over a considerable
part of peninsular Malaysia. Hydraulic conductivity is used as the criterion for
evaluation of soil suitability for the said application. The soil was compacted at
different water content and compaction effort and then permeated with de-aired
tap water. The results of hydraulic conductivity test indicates that the required
flow of less than 10-9 m/s can be achieved by using a broad range of water
content and compaction effort. The soil has minimum shrinkage potential and
adequate strength to support the load of waste overburden. These properties

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discussed would fall under the purview of geotechnical engineering. But the
evaluation of soil suitability is not complete without understanding its chemical
reactivity. In this study, cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soil is used as an
indicator of chemical reactivity. It is desirable that the pollutants released from
the waste disposal site should be effectively attenuated by the liners. This means
that the soil should have high chemical reactivity. A soil with high CEC indicates
high reactivity and hence high attenuation capacity of pollutants.
Bioremediation of oil spills:
The case history is discussed in U. S. Congress, Office of Technology
Assessment, Bioremediation for Marine Oil Spills report. It essentially deals with
a marine oil spill that has occurred on the beaches of Alaska, USA, in late 80s.
The reason was due to the grounding of a ship on the shores. Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA), USA, felt the need of technologies to fight such
calamities. A comprehensive review of the methods for oil spill clean up was
conducted to develop an environmental friendly solution. One of the effective
solutions that came up was bioremediation in which specific species of
microorganisms were used to degrade oil. This is a slow natural process and
hence the major focus was on accelerating and improving the efficiency of this
natural process. Even though, some research has been initiated, it was found
that there is a dearth of data and hence the advantage of bioremediation over
other methods of oil spill clean up is yet to be ascertained. It has been opined
that in case of emergency situation, mechanical process such as using
dispersants and in-situ burning may still be appropriate.
Protecting environment from harmful effects of mine waste
using cover system
O’Kane and Wels (2003) have discussed the performance based design
of covers for mine wastes dumped on ground. The objective of the cover system
is to control harmful contaminant release from the waste dumps, chemical
stabilization of acid forming mine waste, dust and erosion control and provide
growth medium for sustainable vegetation cover. The proposed methodology of
cover design links predicted performance of cover system to the groundwater

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and surface water impacts. This method is impact oriented performance criteria.
In this method, a conceptual cover is selected first based on the type of waste,
size and geometry of the waste disposal, climate etc. A detailed cover design
analysis is performed that correlates cover design parameters (for example cover
thickness) to cover performance (net percolation). Third step links cover design
parameters to environmental impact assessment (groundwater quality). Fourth
step is to assess the risk based on the result from third step and the regulatory
law. If unacceptable, then cover design is modified. If acceptable then field trial
with performance monitoring is suggested. The feedback loop between impact
assessment and cover design is crucial for developing efficient cover system
without being overly conservative.
Value addition of waste products: Geopolymers from fly ash
Andini et al. (2008) have discussed about the value addition of fly ash by
converting it to a product called geopolymers. Davidovits first introduced the term
geopolymers for a new class of three dimensional alumino-silicate materials
(Davidovits 1989). Geopolymers are alkali-activated alumino-silicate binders and
its synthesis takes place by polycondensation from a variety of raw materials
such as metakaolin, coal fly ash etc. Polycondenstation reaction was carried out
by mixing fly ash with alkali metal silicate solution and then curing at different
temperature and time. Amorphous geopolymers are obtained at condensation
temperature ranging from 20 to 90 °C. The geopolymers has excellent
mechanical properties, thermal stability, acid resistance and are durable. It has
got a wide application in ceramics, cements, hazardous waste stabilization, fire
resistant materials etc. Environmentally sound recycling of fly ash into
geopolymers by hydro-thermal treatment is an excellent example of value
addition to the waste material.

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References
1. Andini, S., Cioffi, R., Colangelo, F., Grieco, T., Montangnaro, F. and Santoro,
L. (2008) “Coal fly ash as raw material for the manufacture of geopolymer-
based products”, Waste management, Vol. 28, pp. 416-423.
2. Davidovits, J. (1989) “Geopolymers and geopolymeric materials”, Journal of
Thermal Analysis, Vol. 35, pp. 429-441.
3. Fang, H-Y. and Daniels, J. L. (2006) “Introductory geotechnical engineering-
An environmental perspective”, Taylor and Francis, London.
4. O’Kane, M. and Wels, C. (2003) “Mine waste cover system design - linking
predicted performance to groundwater and surface water impacts”, Sixth
International Conference, Acid, Rock, Drainage, Cairns, Queensland, Carlton
South: AUSIMM.
5. Scott, H. D. (2000) "Soil physics: agricultural and environmental applications”,
Iowa State /university Press, USA.
6. Taha M. R. and M. H. Kabir (2005) “Tropical residual soil as compacted soil
liners”, Environmental Geology, Vol. 47, pp. 375-381.
7. Thomas, G. W. (1977) “Historical developments in soil chemistry: Ion
exchange”, Soil Science Society of America Journal, Vol. 41, pp. 230-238.
8. U. S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Bioremediation for Marine
Oil Spills-Background Paper, OTA-BP-O-70 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, May 1991).

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Model Questions
1) Explain the importance and scope of geoenvironmental engineering.
2) With examples, discuss the multiphase behavior of soil.
3) Why soil becomes important in geoenvironmental engineering?
4) Discuss the multidisciplinary nature of geoenvironmental engineering.

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