Unsaturated materials comprise residual, collapsible and expansive naturally occurring soils, compacted soils and, more recently, residues or solid wastes. The engineering problems associated with unsaturated materials range from those related to conventional geotechnical works (e.g. foundations, pavements, slopes and excavations, retaining structures, earthdams, irrigation canals, tunneling, compacted embankments) to those included in the environmental area (e.g. natural slope instability, erosion and subsidence processes, tailings, residues or solid waste disposal, contaminant transport, remediation of contaminated sites, engineered barriers for environmental protection, re-use of residues).





This book, published in three volumes, comprises a collection of selected and invited papers presented at the Third International Conference on Unsaturated Soils - UNSAT'2002 - that took place in Recife, Brazil, from 10th to 13th March, 2002. Such papers, coming from several parts of the world, reflect both the current state-of-the-art and the state-of-the-practice on dealing with unsaturated materials, including recent research results and advances on topics such as: theoretical, modeling and numerical analysis; laboratory and field testing techniques, monitoring techniques, experimental parameters determination and engineering applications on most of the areas above mentioned.





The book is of interest for consultants, researchers, practitioners, lecturers and student with background formation in geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering and engineering geology.