Geotechnical Investigation on the Right Side of Mosul City by ArcGIS

Abstract

Military efforts to evict terrorist organizations from the governorate caused widespread destruction in Mosul, particularly on the right side of the Tigris River. The city required a complete reconstruction of its buildings and infrastructure. Geotechnical investigations were carried out in the majority of the right-side areas in preparation for the sewerage projects. 64 boreholes were drilled to a depth of 5 m. During the drilling, the physical and engineering properties investigations of the soil have been studied, and the vertical soil depths are divided into three beds (1.5, 3, and 5 m). The investigation was done by the AlMawarid Bureau for geological and engineering geology investigations. The data are interpolated by spatial analysis tools in the ArcGIS application using the Ordinary Kriging Method (OK), which is a better method to represent distribution values nearest to the actual values compared with other methods of interpolation. The results indicate that the soil was distributed into three groups: high plasticity clay, low plasticity clay, and low plasticity silt. Most areas have a liquid limit between 30-50%, a decreased plasticity index toward deeper layers, and low clay activity, while the swelling potential is high except in the southeastern part of the study area, where the bearing capacity increases with depth. In the northeast, the foundation type is compact footing with 1.8 m depth, and in the southwest, it needs a deep pile with 5 m depth. While the chemical test of the soil in the study area has an intensive sulfate environment and the chloride content is between (0.03-0.04) %.