SOIL ENGINEERING: MODERN CHALLENGES AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS

Abstract

The emergence of private ownership of land and the urgent needs of the developing practice of land use require a rethinking of some existing fundamental paradigms and the search for new technologies in the relationship between man and nature, as well as, for this purpose, the creation of new sections of knowledge. New ways of developing the surrounding landscape environment are not enough and the methods offered by traditional disciplines. Construction norms and rules need to be clarified for anthropogenically modified soils and soils. Soil engineering is a field of knowledge that studies the engineering properties of the soil and the possibility of using them for the design and construction of soilengineering structures in the soil and soil structures designed to solve specifi c soilengineering problems of environmental management and develop environmentally friendly engineering technologies for managing the properties of soils and landscapes. Such technologies are in urgent demand today in lowrise, communal, landscape, landscape gardening, agricultural, hydrological, forestry, urban, etc., construction. The objects of soil engineering are soilengineering structures and soil structures of various scales (from pedon to soil cover) created in natural and anthropogenically modified soils. Soilengineering structures mean a soil-technical complex that preserves or creates the basis for the sustainable existence of the natural environment. All soilengineering structures can be divided into inert structures (foundations, pipelines, road surfaces) and structures interacting with the soil (wells, fi ltrationfields, reservoirs, drainage and irrigation systems). Soil and landscape engineering is an integral part of environmental engineering, which is rapidly developing. Technologies of soil and landscape engineering have been one of the main driving forces of the progress of civilization throughout the existence of humanity, and they reached their peak in the Russian estate culture of the 19th century. However, the new socioeconomic phenomenon the «modern Russian estate» needs to be studied and norms and rules developed for organizing its interaction with the natural environment, which in many respects is similar to the influence of garden construction and is very similar to the influence of a city in space and time.