How Ground Improvement Addresses the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals: A Review

Abstract

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were agreed by 195 nations on United Nation (UN) climate change conference in Paris 2015. The agreement was about climate actions to reduce the global warming and reinforcing countries strengths in dealing with climate change phenomenon by means of 17 goals. Researchers and engineers can have a significant contribution in successfulness of the Paris agreement. In particular, ground improvement in geotechnical engineering can have an effective role in promoting goal 12 of the UN SDGs to ensure sustainable consumption and production pattern. One of the key targets for this goal is substantially reduction of the waste production by means of recycling and reuse by 2030. Given the increasing trend of the world\textquoteright{}s population, as such, the production and consumption rates have an increasing trend which makes achieving this goal so challenging. Some manufacturing industries generate by-products in addition to their end-products that usually dump in landfills or occasionally reuse. Many of these by-products have a pozzolanic characteristics that can be used in combination with cement or lime. The materials such as fly ash (FA), blast furnace slag (BFS) are some of these materials. This mini review highlights application of some of these by products in tackling goal 12 of the United Nation sustainable development goals.