Introduction to 2016 INGEOKRING Symposium “Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering”

November 18 2016, TU Delft Culture Center
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I would like to express my appreciation for the great interest received for this event.

Due to time constraints we had to limit the amount of oral presentations. The scientific review committee made a selection of eight contributions to be presented at the Symposium. The remaining contributors were invited to write articles to be included in the 2016 Issue from the INGEOKRING Newsletter, together with the ones presented during the Symposium.

The 2016 Symposium offers an excellent program on a wide range of aspects of geotechnical earthquake engineering topics. We are honoured to present three outstanding Keynote Speakers:

  • Niek Rengers, Chengdu University, China; former Assocate Professor at ITC (Univ. Twente)
  • Hans Roest, State Supervision of Mines, formerly TUDelft;
  • Bernard Dost, Strategic Business Manager Seismology & Acoustics, KNMI.

Since the August 16, 2012 Huizinge Earthquake (M3.6) in Groningen, there is an increased awareness and concern on the effects of induced seismic hazard for the North of The Netherlands. The KNMI has put a great effort in the study and assessment of this hazard and different engineering parties started developing first guidelines towards design and retrofit of housing, buildings and infrastructure. However, on April 13 1992, the South of The Netherlands had already experienced the Roermond Earthquake (M5.8), of tectonic origin. This is a relatively recent seismic event, widely felt and that lead to considerable local damage.

The 2016 INGEOKRING Symposium contributions offer an overview of different aspects of tectonic earthquakes, as well as latest developments on the induced-seismicity studies from the Groningen region and gives nice examples of engineering studies.

The knowledge of this field has grown rapidly the past few years in The Netherlands. This brings opportunities to geotechnical and geological engineers, seismologists, consulting engineers, contractors and authorities to share knowledge, exchange ideas and set future challenges. We believe that the 2016 INGEOKRING Symposium will provide a good platform to build bridges.

Thank you for your contributions, we will all enjoy the presentations and later on the special edition of the Newsletter.

dr.ir. Carolina Sigarán-Loría, Royal HaskoningDHV

2016 INGEOKRING Symposium Chairman

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