In recent decades the development of unsaturated soil mechanics has been remarkable, resulting in momentous advances in fundamental knowledge, testing techniques, computational procedures, prediction methodologies and geotechnical practice. The advances have spanned the full spectrum of theory and practice. In addition, unsaturated materials exhibiting complex behaviour such as residual soils, swelling soils, compacted soils, collapsing soils, tropical soils and solid wastes have been integrated in a common understanding of shared behaviour features. It is also noteworthy that unsaturated soil mechanics has proved surprisingly fruitful in expanding to other neighbouring areas such as swelling rocks, rockfill mechanics, and freezing soils. As a consequence, geotechnical engineering involving unsaturated soils can be now approached from a more rational and systematic perspective leading towards an improved and more effective practice.

Unsaturated Soils contains the papers presented at the 5th International Conference on Unsaturated Soil (Barcelona, Spain, 6-8 September 2010). They report significant advances in the areas of unsaturated soil behaviour, testing techniques, constitutive and numerical modelling and applications. The areas of application include soil-atmosphere interaction, foundations, slopes, embankments, pavements, geoenviromental problems and emerging topics. They are complemented by three keynote lectures and three general reports covering general issues of modelling, testing and applications.

Unsaturated Soils is a comprehensive record of the state-of-the art in unsaturated soil mechanics and a sound basis for further progress in the future. The two volumes will serve as an essential reference for academics, researchers and practitioners interested in unsaturated soils.