Special Issue on Geomechanics Applications in Natural Disaster Mitigation

In recent years, the occurrence of natural disasters, such as large earthquakes, large-scale hurricanes (or typhoons, cyclones), heavy rainfalls, and tornadoes, has been increasing at an alarming rate. Active periods of earthquakes and global warming (including cooling in certain parts of the world) are among possible reasons for some of these disasters. About 100 years ago, Dr. Torahiko Terada, a famous Japanese physicist, said “Disaster strikes when you least expect it.” Also, he hinted that disasters would evolve.

In spite of tremendous improvements in civil engineering techniques and tools, natural disasters continue to cause serious damage to infrastructure, financial loss, and loss of human lives. Geomechanics plays an important role in disaster mitigation. The objectives of this special issue are to promote mechanics-based natural disaster mitigation techniques, including analytical, numerical, and experimental methods in geomechanics and their advances. Papers covering novel applications of geomechanics in disaster mitigation were contributed by international experts in the field. Specific topics include landslides, liquefaction, damage to lifeline systems and structures caused by earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters, and failure mechanisms. For this special issue, each paper went through a rigorous review process followed by the International Journal of Geomechanics, and 12 papers were selected. These papers relate to mitigation techniques and experimental and numerical methods for evaluating the impact of disasters.

The editors are thankful to all the reviewers for doing such an outstanding job in reviewing the manuscripts included in this special issue and those manuscripts that were not accepted.