GeoAmericas 2024

(31 Clicks)

Connecting State of the Art to State of Practice

Held every four years, GeoAmericas explores the appropriate use and beneficial impact of geosynthetics on civil infrastructure and sustainability throughout the Americas. The 2024 conference, which is a major regional technical conference and trade show of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), is organized by IGS North America.

Major Topics for 2024

Sustainability

• Reducing the carbon footprint (or decarbonizing) construction and engineering
• Life cycle assessment approaches to applications with geosynthetics
• Sustainability ethics in engineering
• Resilient infrastructure systems
• Geosynthetics and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• The influence of sustainability on waste management design
• Water resource protection – containment, conveyance, irrigation security, floating covers, waterfront protection
• Bioinspired engineering design

Energy

• Opportunities and challenges in energy transition for geotechnical engineering
• Wind Energy – On-shore, off-shore, site design strategies and best practices, erosion control, scour protection, long-term maintenance, economics of wind farm construction and performance
• Solar Energy – Solar collection with geotechnical systems (e.g., landfill capping, floating covers)
• Energy Geotechnics – Geothermal heat exchangers, high-temperature containment ponds and waste cells, subsurface geothermal collection and storage
• Landfill Gas (LFG) – Collection, management, performance evaluation with temporary and final cover systems

Mining

• Tailings – Dams, Pits, Design, Management, Remediation
• Heap Leach – Evolving practice & scale, environmental performance, best practices, containment designs and mine ROI, high-altitude heap leach design and safety
• Mine Safety & Infrastructure – Slope stability, longwall mining, road integrity, crusher walls
• Failure & Reclamation – Causes of and response to failures, abandoned mines, reclamation strategies and examples
• Water – Site water management, evaporation control, dewatering designs and performance

Transportation Infrastructure

• Roadway, railway, and airfield applications and design
• Track foundations and embankments – Stability and performance, maintenance, rehabilitation vs. rebuild
• Bridges & Embankments
• Pavement testing and performance evaluations: highway and airfield
• Technical transfer between military and civilian engineering
• Tunneling
• Intermodal and container storage yard design
• Improving shipping and navigation – Dredging, dredge spoils management, evolving ports

Additional Topics of Interest

Design, Applications & Case Studies

• Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Land Use for Food Production
• Coastal Engineering & Resilience
• Dam Engineering
• Erosion & Sediment Control
• Geohazard / Disaster Mitigation & Response
• Geosynthetics Properties & Testing
• Landfills and changing waste management practices
• MSE Walls
• Slope Stabilization
• Soil-Geosynthetic Interaction
• Water Resources

Hot Topics in the Americas

• Durability and Long-Term Performance
• Engineering in different environments: arid zones, cold regions, high heat, humid, mountainous, tropical
• Failures & Remediation
• Geotechnical and civil software advances
• Standardization of Geosynthetics – NOTE: GeoAmericas 2024 will celebrate the 40th anniversary of ASTM International Committee D35 on Geosynthetics’ work. The impact of standardization on practice is welcomed throughout the conference.