ABSTRACT
Water has a most important relationship with all construction materials. It may serve as an essential component as in hydraulic cements and concretes. Water and aqueous solutions may interact physically and chemically with the materials of structures designed to contain or conduct them, such as water supply and sanitary installations, including dams and conduits constructed of earth, concrete, wood, or metals. Because of its ubiquity, even in desert air, and its physical and chemical characteristics, water is one of the main deteriorating agents acting on practically all construction materials employed on this earth and greatly influences or even determines their durability under service conditions. Obviously, the better we understand the water substance the better we can gauge its effect on construction materials. If soil-water is polluted, then the complexity of each phase is multiplied. Since soil-water environment interaction is the major part of geotechnology, we must make an effort to understand as much as possible about the interaction and its response to local environments during soil’s useful life period.
