This issue marks the end of our eighteenth year as an international technical journal devoted to geosynthetics, and our ninth year in an electronic format. We are delighted to complete this 2011 volume of the journal with publication of the 2010 Giroud Lecture by Professor H. Brandl, and the Third Zeng Guo-Xi Lecture by Professor R. K. Rowe.
2010 GIROUD LECTURE
Publication of the 2010 Giroud Lecture by Professor H. Brandl titled ‘Geosynthetics applications for the mitigation of natural disasters and for environmental protection' continues a tradition established in 2005 with the Special Issue on the Giroud Lectures (Vol. 12 No. 1) containing updated versions of the first three Giroud Lectures.
The Giroud Lecture was established by the Council of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) in 1994 in recognition of the invaluable contributions of Dr J. P. Giroud to the technical advancement of the geosynthetics discipline, and his central role in the development of the IGS. The initial decision to establish the lecture was kept secret. The announcement was only made by then IGS President, Professor R. K. Rowe, at the end of the Special Lecture presented by Dr J. P. Giroud at the opening session of the Fifth International Conference on Geotextiles, Geomembranes and Related Products (which was the early name of the International Conferences on Geosynthetics) in 1994, in Singapore. This established de facto the 1994 lecture as the Giroud Lecture number ‘zero'. The IGS appointed Professor R. M. Koerner to present the first Giroud Lecture at the Sixth International Conference on Geosynthetics in 1998, in Atlanta, USA. The IGS appointed Professor R. K. Rowe to present the second Giroud Lecture at the Seventh International Conference on Geosynthetics in 2002, in Nice, France. Mr C. R. Lawson was appointed by the IGS Council to present the third Giroud Lecture at the Eighth International Conference on Geosynthetics in 2006, in Yokohama, Japan. The full citations to the first four Giroud Lectures are given at the end of this article.
Professor H. Brandl was appointed by the IGS Council in 2008 to deliver the 2010 Giroud Lecture at the Ninth International Conference on Geosynthetics in 2010, in Guaruja, Brazil. His paper, titled ‘Geosynthetics applications for the mitigation of natural disasters and for environmental protection', continues the tradition of technical excellence that is associated with the prestigious Giroud Lecture. We are delighted that Professor Brandl has allowed us to publish an updated version of his important state-of-the-art lecture in the journal.
The Editor would also like to acknowledge the publishers (Brazilian Chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society) and the organizers (E. M. Palmeira, D. M. Vidal, A. S. J. F. Sayão and M. Ehrlich) of the proceedings in which the original paper appeared for permission to publish this paper in an updated version.
THIRD ZENG GUO-XI LECTURE
Professor Zeng Guo-Xi is one of China's pioneers in geotechnical research, education and practice, and the founding leader of the geotechnical programme at Zhejiang University. The Zeng Guo-Xi Lecture and the Zeng Guo-Xi Lecture Fund were established on Professor's Zeng's ninetieth birthday to mark his great contributions.
The first Lecture was given in 2007 by Professor D. G. Fredlund (Canada) and the second in 2008 by Professor R. J. Jardine (UK).
We are delighted that Professor R. K. Rowe, past-President of the International Geosynthetics Society, member of the Editorial Board of Geosynthetics International, and a highly respected technical contributor to our geosynthetics discipline, was awarded the Third Zeng Guo-Xi Lecture for 2009. The title of his lecture, ‘Systems engineering: the design and operation of municipal solid waste landfills to minimize contamination of groundwater', is timely and of great interest to our discipline. We are pleased that Professor Rowe agreed to contribute an updated version of this lecture to the journal.
This lecture was originally presented at the International Symposium on Geoenvironmental Engineering, Hangzhou, China. It was originally included in the proceedings of that conference, Advances in Environmental Geotechnics (ISBN 978-3-642-04459-5), pp. 3–18, and is published with kind permission of Zhejiang University Press and Springer Science+Business Media. References in this version have been updated and minor edits were made to the original lecture.
R.J.B.
