ABSTRACT

Arid soils are soils which have been conditioned by an arid environment in which there is an annual net moisture deficit. This conditioning gives arid soils particular engineering characteristics the most important being potential for swelling or collapse on wetting, susceptibility to erosion and potential to corrode buried structures. Arid soils may be described and classified using one of the existing schemes with additional components. The most important of these are the degree of cementing, the chemistry of the soil, cement and groundwater and the present and future groundwater conditions. A scheme for classification of soils extended to include the essential characteristics of arid soils is proposed.