In Ross’ outgoing editorial in June he talked about the great advances industry, academia and government have been making in geotechnical engineering in New Zealand. He also talked about the challenge of incorporating this research into practice. We created this special feature to highlight some of the world-class research that has been happening recently so the wider membership has a chance to see advances we have been making. This will hopefully lead to a dialogue between researchers and practitioners that facilitates incorporation of our innovations into practice. I encourage you to continue to submit research articles for future issues so we can keep this dialogue going.
We are also starting to publicise the next NZGS Symposium in Napier on 23-25 November 2017. This is always a great opportunity for industry, researchers and regulators to come together to highlight case studies, new findings, and new directions for the geotechnical industry. Get your ideas together, look out for the call for abstracts, and see you this time next year!
In addition to the special feature, this issue presents an important draft document that aims to provide guidance for assessing candidates for registration as CPEng Geotechnical Engineers. This is a large collaborative effort between IPENZ, NZGS and MBIE that is now ready for contribution from the wider NZGS membership. The NZGS is working on a similar document for PEngGeol that will be ready for feedback in a few months’ time.
We want this document to reflect what we as a professional society think a Professional Geotechnical Engineer should be able to do. We are a society of practitioners, educators and researchers in geo engineering, encompassing a wide range of backgrounds, training, skills and expertise. This leads to a variety of different approaches to our discipline and it is important for all of us, geotechnical engineers and all others in this field, to read this document and provide feedback.
Finally, with the recent earthquake events in the top of the South Island, we want to remind you to keep safe while out doing field work. Consider putting your observations and project news into the next issue of Geomechanics News, which will include a special feature focussing on the early geotechnical response to the earthquakes. Of particular consideration will be: how did the natural, engineered and built environment perform, how resilient are we, what kind of field work have we done, and what have we learned so far? Given the time frame we expect to receive mostly short technical items and plenty of photos. Longer items, opinions and letters to the editor will of course also be accepted.
