ABSTRACT
The importance of terrain conditions to engineering practice has been recognized for centuries. The discipline of engineering geology evolved in the nineteenth century but it was not until the 1920s, when Terzaghi appreciated the role of pore-water pressure that analyses to formulate the behaviour of soils became possible. Soil mechanics did not become widely taught until the 1950s. Engineering geology became a separate subject in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Engineering geomorphology is younger still. Its contributions began with the engineering implications of superficial sediments and with slope stability, and have more recently included a wider range of geomorphic processes (Fookes and Gray, 1987).
