Geotechnical Risk Management during Design and Construction

This paper describes both emerging and common sense approaches to managing risk for geotechnical engineering aspects of constructed facilities using preventive measures to minimize potential to become a forensic project. The process starts with the elemental, important, and collaborative “what could go wrong” question during design, identifying risks and a range of risk management strategies which could be implemented for typical geotechnical design and construction problems. Geotechnical risks include but are not limited to inaccurate settlement estimates, failures due to improper selection of soil strengths, risks associated with innovation, construction issues, and claims of differing site conditions. Risk management strategies will be presented from development of a simple risk register with contingency plans, to sophisticated methods of assessing risk and confidence in certain predictions of ground behavior. The paper will review the emerging trend of voluntary and regulatory-required geotechnical peer review and a few lessons learned from example projects where design phase risk management could have improved outcomes. Recommendations for common sense practice for any project will be presented.