ABSTRACT
One of the primordial tasks of the geotechnical engineer is selection of parameters for equilibrium or deformation analyse to meet today’s requirements of low risk and cost-effective solutions. Especially for soft clays, even small changes in design parameters can have significant technical and economical consequences. The paper looks into some of the factors influencing soil parameters and their determination for design of foundations. One of the important challenges is the analysis of the risk of slope instability. A deterministic approach for stability evaluation does not deal systematically with parameter uncertainty. An approach dealing explicitly with parameter uncertainty is more complete and more reliable.
