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THE ROLE OF GROUND FORUM IN SUPPORTING AND REPRESENTING THE GEOSYNTHETICS COMMUNITY

K.R. Gabriel

Gabriel GeoConsulting Ltd and Chairman, Ground Forum. (e-mail: KeithG@gabrielgeo.co.uk)

ABSTRACT

The UK Chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society is a member of the Ground Forum, the ‘umbrella’ body for the ground engineering industry.  The significance of the contribution of geosynthetics to geotechnical engineering and the challenges ahead for the geosynthetics community are summarised in order to set in context the role of the Ground Forum in supporting the ground engineering sector in general, and the geosynthetics community in particular, and lobbying government and others on issues of concern to the sector.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF, AND CHALLENGES FOR, GEOSYNTHETICS

It is often said, inappropriately, that geotechnics has not changed significantly in recent years.  That suggestion is erroneous on several counts, one of the most compelling being the substantial advances that the introduction of geosynthetics has brought to the practice of geotechnical engineering. 

JP Giroud, in his paper ‘The Geosynthetics Discipline: Achievements and Challenges’ (2008, in prep) records that over 20 billion square metres of geosynthetics have been used in several million projects and argues cogently that geosynthetics “have been the most important innovation in geotechnical engineering in the second half of the 20th century”. 

The diversity of uses for modern geosynthetics is illustrated by Giroud’s classification; he identified four “classical” functions:

• fluid transmission
• filtration
• separation
• reinforcement

and six additional functions:

• as fluid barriers
• in road pavements against reflective cracking
• as cushions adjacent to geomembranes
• as modifiers of friction between two materials (increasing or decreasing)
• erosion control (geomats)
• confining soil (geocells and geocontainers).

Slightly more controversially, Giroud suggests that it is now “not possible to practice geotechnical engineering without using geosynthetics.”  Whether or not one agrees with this suggestion there is no doubt that geosynthetics have made a huge contribution to geotechnical engineering.

Looking ahead, Giroud identifies three main challenges for the geosynthetics community:

• Provision of education courses on geosynthetics including making civil engineers more aware of the possibilities offered by geosynthetics
• Specific technical challenges in developing new applications
• General technical challenges: durability and developing design mechanisms for “subtle” mechanisms.

I will leave others to consider the technical challenges.  The remainder of this paper outlines the Ground Forum’s role in supporting the geosynthetics community and considers the issue of education which, together with the current skills shortage, is one of the Ground Forum’s main areas of activity.

THE GROUND FORUM

So what does the Ground Forum do?  Ground Forum was founded in 1993 with its primary role being to facilitate the exchange of information and the co-ordination of activities between the chairmen of its member organisations.  The membership (Table 1) comprises the leading trade associations and learned societies who collectively represent all aspects of ground engineering including geoenvironmental services. 

Table 1. Ground Forum members:

Ground Forum’s second major role is campaigning on behalf of the ground engineering sector on issues of concern.  There are more than 300 organisations representing the construction industry so, understandably, government prefers to deal with ‘umbrella’ bodies; the Ground Forum is the umbrella body for the ground engineering industry.  Through membership of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and, more directly, through the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee (P&SC) Ground Forum is able to lobby ministers, other MPs and members of the Lords.  Ground Forum’s position in the industry is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Ground Forum’s position amongst bodies representing the UK construction industry