Introduction to the 53rd Karl Terzaghi Lecture

Prof. Kerry Rowe delivered the 53rd Terzaghi Lecture on March 14, 2017 during the Geo-Congress in Orlando. Prof. Rowe submitted the corresponding paper for publication in the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering (JGGE), and we are delighted to see to its publication together with this brief introduction.

Prof. Rowe’s lecture and the paper now published address a vitally important topic, one which he knows intricately. Broadly, the paper covers the long-term performance of geomembranes, and geosynthetics in general, in landfill applications. The paper establishes that the service life of these materials under conditions operative in landfills may be in the hundreds of years but may also be as short as only a few years. The lecture delves into the details of how performance may be hampered (how leakage may develop). Prof. Rowe highlights the significance of undetected holes, buried wrinkles, and inadequate protection and how these can adversely affect the performance of the containment system. Damage or impaired function may result from mechanical factors (e.g., the tensile strain to which the geomembrane is subjected) or environmental factors, such as exposure to chemicals the system is intended to contain, or to sunlight. The paper also tells us of the importance of good design, construction quality assurance, and leak-location surveys (if properly planned and implemented) in reducing leakage through liners to negligible values.

The large and growing world population and the effects this growth, along with the globalization of production and consumption, have had a large effect on the amount of waste that ends up in land-fills. Additionally, there has been increasing focus of protection of the environment from mining related wastes and liquids. These developments make the focus and topical coverage of the 53rd Terzaghi Lecture, “Protecting the Environment with Geosynthetics,” more important than ever.

How did Dr. Rowe’s interest in geosynthetics and their application in geotechnical projects and landfills, in particular, come about?

Those who attended the lecture benefited from a detailed account of Dr. Rowe’s life and career presented by Dr. Ian Moore, who introduced him before the Terzaghi lecture. I attempt here to briefly tell our readers about Dr. Rowe’s interest in geosynthetics and about his considerable contributions to the field. Born in 1951 in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Rowe developed an interest in civil engineering while growing up in a construction town and watching the construction of Eucumbene Dam as a child. He headed back to Sydney for high school and then attended the University of Sydney, where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in 1972 and a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering, together with a University Medal for academic distinction in 1974. After a period in industry, Kerry then pursued a Ph.D. under Professor Ted Davis. He finished his Ph.D. thesis in 1977, spent some time working for the Commonwealth Department of Works and, in 1979, moved to Canada to join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Ontario as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate and then Full Professor in 1986. While there, he contributed to the department in many ways, including as head of the department from 1992 until 2000 and through his research on the topic of geosynthetics. That research and his active role in the community he was awarded ASCE’s Collingwood Prize for his paper on reinforced embankments in 1984 and to a very successful four-year term as the third President of the International Geosynthetics Society. Dr. Rowe joined Queen’s University as Vice-Principal for Research in 2000. He and his colleagues—including Dr. Moore, who had also just joined Queen’s, and Dr. Richard Bathurst of the Royal Military College of Canada—then went on to found and develop the very successful Geoengineering Centre.

Prof. Rowe has been exceptionally successful in his research career. As an indicator of such success, he has published 461 publications indexed by Scopus, which have been cited over 10,600 times, leading to an h-index of 51. It should not be a surprise, then, that he has been widely recognized by the research and engineering community, having received many important awards and delivered prestigious lectures (including over 80 keynote lectures, the 2017 Terzaghi Lecture, and the 2005 Rankine Lecture). Among his most impressive recognitions are his election as a Fellow to both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society in the United Kingdom, the latter a rare honor, as well as the US National Academy of Engineering.

With this background on Dr. Rowe, our readers can let his paper now tell them about Dr. Rowe’s passion and extensive work with geosynthetics and about their important function in “protecting the World.”