Geosyntec provides practical engineering solutions to challenging projects and sites where geohazards are present, including seismic events, landslides, and other geographical and topographical hazards. We assist state and local agencies in evaluating the effectiveness of current building codes; limiting the effects of seismic events on private property and community infrastructure; forecasting and managing potential losses from geohazards to minimize their social, environmental, and economic impacts; and aid project planners in protecting properties and their investments from foundation risks.

Our clients come from a variety of sectors including petrochemical facilities, water and wastewater utilities, conventional and alternative energy producing facilities, and commercial developments. Routinely, Geosyntec practitioners are members of multi-national reconnaissance teams that are deployed worldwide to assess and mitigate the impacts of damaging seismic events.

Practice Specialties

Our specialized geohazard services include the evaluation of design earthquake loading, landslide mapping and mitigation, karst topography assessment, and the evaluation of other types of naturally occurring geological hazards. We offer multi-disciplinary expertise in geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, geological engineering and rock mechanics, geology, seismology, and remote sensing to identify and quantify the probabilities and potential impacts of geohazards.

Due to our expertise, Geosyntec’s engineers and scientists can quantify geohazard challenges to develop and expand the information known about a site beyond the limited information available from traditional methods. Our practitioners are leading authorities in the characterization, assessment, and construction of engineered structures in areas of high seismicity and underlain by karst and other geologic features and are specialists in post-event field reconnaissance, karst investigations, liquefaction mitigation, and liquefaction susceptibility and impact evaluation.

As specialists in earthquake hazard evaluation, deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard evaluation, development of design ground motions, site response analysis, fault studies, and casualty loss modeling, our practitioners can devise unique landslide stabilization measures, including measures involving soil nailing, ground anchoring, construction of drainage galleries and earth retention systems, and related technologies, for our clients.

We also can apply a variety of technologies to mitigate liquefaction susceptibility including installation of rock columns, blasting, and related technologies and perform post-earthquake reconnaissance work to assess the safety of affected structures and to minimize the potential economic impacts of a disaster.

Advancing the State of the Practice

We continue to advance the state of the practice through our collaboration in applied research and development with leading universities on topics such as stresses and strains on geosynthetics during seismic events, site response analysis, and seismic design of municipal solid waste landfills. In addition, our senior practitioners provide technical training through universities and professional societies on a variety of geohazard design topics such as slope stability, earthen structure design, soils and foundation engineering, and site response analysis.

Many of our practitioners have authored more than 15 guidance documents on design approaches to avoid or mitigate the potential impacts of geohazards in the built environment that have been prepared for and utilized by state and federal environmental agencies, state and federal transportation agencies, and U.S. Department of Defense agencies.