ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the drivers for change and groundwater control works. Demand for underground space, notably for transport infrastructure and services, continues to expand around the world, and so too will the need to control groundwater where construction works to build these facilities reach below the groundwater level. Construction arrangements that use cut-offs and groundwater lowering systems in combination can be the most cost-effective approach to meeting regulatory requirements. The penetration of computer technology into groundwater control activities in the UK started with word processing in about 1980 and progressed to cost estimating and accounts, before reaching the desks of design engineers around 1990. Numerical modelling techniques are having an important impact on the design of groundwater control systems, but they remain a long way from challenging the central role of judgement based on experience, local knowledge and empirical methods in the design process.
