EARTH REINFORCEMENT (MSE = MECHANICALLY STABILIZED EARTH) FOR ROAD

EMBANKMENTS, SOIL EROSION CONTROL & GLOBAL WARMING

The speaker, Prof. Dennes T. Bergado, a graduate from the Asian Institute of

Technology has discussed and shown the effects of global warming and climate change.

These effects would later cause natural calamities such as floods and strong typhoons. His

solution to the disaster these calamities would bring is to provide geosynthetic products to

strengthen earth reinforcement.

Geosynthetic products are thin, flexible, sheet-like materials that enhance the

engineering performance of soils. I think this application would be great since our place of

living is usually near bodies of water, and geosynthetic reinforcements should be more

effective against flooding. The speaker also provided a chart showing the cost comparison of

reinforced systems. In this chart, it showed the cost of wall in dollars per square meter of

face, versus the height of wall in meters. This shows that the cost of using MSE construction

is better and cheaper.

Since we live in a harsh reality where climate change is only getting worse, I, for one,

would like to see methods like MSE being considered around the world.
 50 YEARS OF COMMITTEE ON SEISMIC ASPECTS OF DAM DESIGN

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE ON LARGE DAMS (ICOLD)

The speaker for this topic, Dr. Martin Weiland, discussed to us how dams were the

first structures globally, to be designed against earthquakes. He also discussed the main

developments in seismic safety of dams such as: changing from being a pseudostatic to a

dynamic seismic analysis of dams. The ICOLD observed this since there were times where

dams design with the pseudostatic analysis and design methods have been damaged during

earthquakes, where in fact they shouldn’t have. I think the points he said were spot on, and

even encouraged us to join the committee in the future, since he stated that there are rarely

Filipino people in the committee, which is bad considering the Philippines to be an

earthquake prone country, being inside the Ring of Fire.

I honestly believe that our generation should not rely on the pseudostatic design, and

instead should use the dynamic seismic analysis of dams. We should be very educated in this

area since there have been talks of the “Big One” happening soon, and we would not want

lives to be lost, and livelihoods being destroyed.