Status of engineering geology in North America and Europe

1995-1996 has been informally declared as a watershed year for the United States in many ways. Pervasive change has been the tenor of the times and engineering geology has not escaped what the nation faces. In particular, the nation has run out of easy money and the Congressional elections of 1994 empowered a majority of new members expressing fiscal accountability. Accordingly, agencies have been given reduced budgets and programs have been slashed or removed, early retirements have been accomplished and reductions in force (RIFs) have been concluded among personnel. Priced competition for professional work reached a new and regrettable peak of use and industries struggled with successive waves of both corporate acquisitions and ''downsizing'' of staffing. In the UK and Europe, drought conditions developed and became more severe during 1995. The first land,link between the UK and Europe since late glacial times (the Channel tunnel rail link) developed full working schedules. The input of geotechnical engineering into this prestige international project was further demonstrated by a-final series of major conferences and publications (Byrd, 1994; Institution of Civil Engineers, 1992, 1993, 1994). The major downturn in ''normal'' civil works, and the associated preparatory geotechnical investigations, for roads, redevelopment and housing, etc. continued, with many smaller site investigation and associated specialists either ''downsizing'', being subsumed into larger groups, or going out of business. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.