Tuesday-Thursday 3 to 5. Many world class cities are built in lower floodplain river valleys underlain by unstable ground, subject to flooding, often adjoining dynamic mountain areas giving rise to earthquakes and landslides. Civil disputes over property damage caused by earthquake, subsidence, soil liquefaction, construction, flooding, and ground and water contamination have been a regular feature of urban life for five thousand years. Satisfaction of damage claims and appropriate remediation calls for investigative skills of civil engineers and geologists.  This seminar will show techniques of causal evaluation for such civil damage claims in the context of emerging concepts of fair allocation of responsibility with particular focus on California, which is sets the legal pace in the U.S. and other regions.
 
 

DATE	TOPIC	REFERENCES
Jan 6	Global scope: geotechnics of Holocene sediments; history of urban centers on basin margins; flood hydrology. Mesopotamia California at the 100 ft contour Problems and legal issues	Stanley; Dickensen; Terzaghi Eng. Geol. Quat. Sed; case studies.
Jan 11	Legal and institutional response to geotechnical risk. Role of causal analysis. -general process of litigation -subsidence law -hillside failures -Insurance law	Legal references: tort and condemnation law; Cal earthquake policies.
Jan 13	California flood cases  Relationship between earthquake and flood causation. -Bunch case -Rogers paper	Mesopotamia, Alviso, Pajaro, Linda-Arboga,
Jan 18	Basin margins	Discovery Bay, Lakeshore, MIT buildings, Boston Public Library
Jan 20	Uplands	Gibault, Seeno, Port Bend, Love Creek, Hu
Jan 25	Resource extraction and Waste Disposal	Baldwin Hills; Ross explosion; Belmont School
Jan 27	Decay, waste, and desease in the old world; claims in coastal cities of the US northeast: Boston, New Jersey, other deltaic regions	Brimmer Street, Bound Brook, Toms River
Jan 27	Forensic issues: role and scope of expertise; practicalities and ethics of professional forensics.