A Systematic Review of the Relationship between Geotechnics and Disasters

Abstract

Landslides, earthquakes, and other natural events can change the landscape and generate human and economic losses, affecting transportation and public service infrastructure. In every geotechnical project, the investigation phase plays a fundamental role in reducing the risk of occurrence and mitigating catastrophes. As a result, governments have created entities to study disasters and identify triggering factors that generate huge losses worldwide. This research aims to conduct a systematic review of the relationship between geotechnics and disasters through bibliometric techniques, scientific production evaluation, and case studies analysis to recognize key topics, methods, and thematic development of the research worldwide. The research methodology consisted of three steps: (1) Database analysis, selection, and combination, (2) bibliometric analysis, and (3) systematic review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. The systematic review with bibliometric analysis collected data from 1973 to 2021, with 1299 academic publications indexed in the Scopus and WoS database. These results indicated a growing trend of annual publications on disasters and their relationship with geotechnical studies, highlighting current issues and technological innovation. The main research trends in disaster risk assessment were topics mainly linked to landslides, earthquakes, liquefaction, and inappropriate analysis models with applications of geophysical methods, laboratory tests, remote sensing, and numerical models.