Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering

About Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering

Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering: Profile and Author Guide

The Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering is the flagship geotechnical journal of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), published from the United States under print ISSN 1090-0241 and electronic ISSN 1943-5606. Its standard abbreviation is J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng. It is a peer-reviewed research journal for the broad area of practice known as geotechnical engineering, a discipline concerned with how soil, rock and groundwater behave when they carry buildings, bridges, dams, tunnels, embankments and other works, and with how ground-related hazards and ground contamination are understood and managed. Few journals sit so squarely at the meeting point of research and practice: ASCE states in its own aims and scope that theoretical papers are welcomed only where there is a clear and significant potential for practical application, and that practice-oriented papers and case studies are particularly welcomed and encouraged. That single editorial rule explains much of the journal's character, its readership and its lasting influence on design codes, guidance documents and consulting practice around the world.

This profile records what can be verified about the journal from its publisher and from indexing and bibliometric services, explains its subject scope in detail, describes its editorial leadership as listed by ASCE, and gives prospective authors a realistic account of how to judge whether their work belongs here. Where a figure comes from a secondary bibliometric service rather than from the publisher, that source is named in the text, because citation indicators change every year and differ between providers.

Identity at a Glance

• Full title: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
• Publisher: American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), United States; ASCE's publishing address is given in journal directories as 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Virginia
• Print ISSN: 1090-0241
• Electronic ISSN: 1943-5606
• Abbreviation: J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng.
• Language: English
• Frequency: Monthly — journal directories list 12 issues per year
• Subject areas: Geotechnical engineering and engineering geology; general environmental science, as classified in Scopus-derived listings
• Editor-in-Chief (as listed by ASCE): Catherine O'Sullivan of Imperial College London
• Access model: Subscription journal published through the ASCE Library, with individual article options handled through the publisher's platform

History and Place Within ASCE Publishing

ASCE is one of the oldest national engineering societies in the United States, and its journals programme is the principal archival record of American civil engineering research. The geotechnical title in that programme has carried different names across its long life, reflecting the growth of the field itself: the discipline began as soil mechanics, widened into foundation engineering and geotechnical engineering, and then, from the late twentieth century, absorbed environmental problems such as waste containment, contaminated land and groundwater protection. The present, longer title captures that widening. Bibliographic listings consulted for this profile give coverage of the current title beginning in 1996, and articles published under the current title are firmly in evidence by volume 123 in 1997 — a volume whose papers, on topics such as piles subjected to lateral soil movements and the permeability functions of unsaturated soils, are still cited in geotechnical teaching and research. Secondary sources that summarise the journal commonly describe its history as running from 1996 to the present, which matches that volume evidence.

The addition of the word “geoenvironmental” to the title was more than a relabelling. It signalled that the journal would treat the environmental side of ground engineering — liners and covers for waste facilities, the migration of contaminants through soil, the remediation of polluted sites and the monitoring and restoration of groundwater — as core business rather than as a neighbouring specialty. That decision has shaped the journal's contents ever since: a reader scanning a recent issue will find papers on landfill engineering and contaminant transport alongside papers on deep foundations, tunnelling-induced settlement and earthquake-induced liquefaction, all judged by the same standard of engineering usefulness.

The journal is also closely associated with ASCE's Geo-Institute, the society's technical community for geotechnical engineers. The ASCE Library's page for the journal lists the Geo-Institute's Board of Governors alongside the journal's editors, and named lectures and honours in the field, such as the long-running Terzaghi Lecture, have traditionally been published in ASCE's geotechnical journal. For readers, this institutional anchoring matters: the journal is not a free-standing commercial title but the house journal of a professional community, and its papers feed directly into the conferences, standards work and practice guidance of that community.

Scope: What the Journal Publishes

ASCE's own aims and scope statement lists the journal's territory in a single, dense paragraph. Papers are welcomed on foundations; retaining structures; excavations; ground improvement; groundwater control and dewatering; the geotechnical aspects of tunnelling; the engineering behaviour of soil and rock; site characterisation; slope stability; dams; rock engineering; soil dynamics; earthquake engineering; environmental geotechnics; geosynthetics; computer modelling; groundwater monitoring and restoration; and coastal and offshore geotechnical engineering. Authors are also encouraged to submit on new and emerging topics within the general discipline. Each of those headings supports a substantial literature, and it is worth unfolding them, because authors most often misjudge this journal not on quality but on fit.

Foundations, Retaining Structures and Excavations

Foundation engineering remains a central strand: shallow footings, rafts, piles, drilled shafts, micropiles and other deep foundation systems, studied through field load tests, instrumented case histories, analytical models and numerical simulation. Work on retaining structures and excavations covers earth pressure, wall deflection, basal stability, strutting and anchoring, and the effects of excavation on neighbouring buildings and utilities — a topic of intense practical interest in dense cities, where a well-documented case history with monitoring data can change how engineers design support systems. Papers in this area are expected to connect their findings to design decisions: a new bearing-capacity factor, a revised settlement estimate, or a demonstrated construction risk is the kind of contribution the journal rewards.

Soil and Rock Behaviour, and Site Characterisation

A second strand concerns the engineering behaviour of soil and rock themselves: strength, stiffness, compressibility, permeability, consolidation, creep, and the behaviour of unsaturated, expansive, collapsible, frozen or residual soils. Laboratory element testing, centrifuge modelling and in situ testing all feature, as does site characterisation — the planning and interpretation of boreholes, cone penetration tests, geophysics and sampling programmes that turn a patch of ground into an engineering model. Papers that propose or validate constitutive models belong here too, provided, as ASCE insists, that the route from model to practical application is clear and significant.

Slopes, Dams and Rock Engineering

Slope stability work spans natural slopes and landslides, engineered embankments, cuttings, levees and tailings facilities, including the effects of rainfall, drawdown and earthquakes on stability. Dam engineering papers address earth and rockfill dams, seepage and internal erosion, dam safety assessment and rehabilitation. Rock engineering covers rock mass characterisation, rock slopes, underground openings and the interaction between rock and structures. These are safety-critical subjects in which the journal's insistence on documented case evidence carries particular weight.

Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

Geotechnical earthquake engineering is one of the journal's best-known strengths. Liquefaction assessment, cyclic soil behaviour, site response analysis, seismic design of foundations and retaining walls, and post-earthquake field reconnaissance reports all appear regularly. Summary papers from major earthquakes, prepared by reconnaissance teams, have historically become reference documents for the whole profession, used in code development and in graduate teaching for decades afterwards.

Environmental Geotechnics and Geosynthetics

The geoenvironmental strand covers waste containment systems, liner and cover performance, leachate and gas management, contaminant transport through soil and rock, remediation technologies, beneficial reuse of waste materials in ground works, and groundwater monitoring and restoration. Geosynthetics — geotextiles, geomembranes, geogrids and related products used in reinforcement, drainage, filtration and containment — form a closely connected topic area, with papers on material durability, interface behaviour and field performance.

Ground Improvement, Tunnelling, and Coastal and Offshore Work

Ground improvement papers examine compaction, preloading, vertical drains, stone columns, deep mixing, grouting, vibro techniques and newer methods such as microbially induced carbonate precipitation, usually with field verification. Tunnelling papers address ground movements, face stability, lining behaviour and the protection of existing structures. Coastal and offshore geotechnics covers foundations for offshore wind turbines and platforms, pipelines, anchors, seabed characterisation and the effects of waves and scour — an area that has grown rapidly with offshore renewable energy development.

Modelling, Data and Emerging Topics

Computer modelling runs through every strand: finite element and discrete element analysis, coupled flow-deformation modelling, reliability and probabilistic methods, and, increasingly, machine learning applied to prediction and site data. ASCE's current scope note adds an important expectation: the journal encourages authors to make the data and code underlying their results openly available in a recognised public repository, and, for machine learning and other complex models that cannot be fully reproduced from the manuscript alone, authors are strongly encouraged to share code or training datasets, or to state clearly where proprietary, confidentiality or licensing constraints prevent sharing. ASCE also encourages authors to categorise their research using at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations, reflecting the publisher's stated aim of advancing research that informs sustainable action.

Editorial Leadership

The editorial board listed by ASCE at the time this profile was prepared is headed by Editor-in-Chief Catherine O'Sullivan of Imperial College London, with Mohammed A. Gabr of North Carolina State University as Editor-at-Large. Specialist editorial roles include a Discussions and Closures Editor, Roman D. Hryciw of the University of Michigan, and a TBA and Forum Editor, Patrick J. Fox of Ohio University. The Editors group includes Ed Kavazanjian (Arizona State University), Robb Eric S. Moss (California Polytechnic State University), Monica Prezzi (Purdue University) and Armin W. Stuedlein (Oregon State University), with Craig H. Benson of the University of Wisconsin–Madison serving as Ombudsman. Beneath them sits a large international panel of associate editors drawn from universities and practice across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia — names such as Buddhima Indraratna, Jie Han, Anand J. Puppala, Dimitrios Zekkos and Limin Zhang among many others. Board composition changes over time, so authors should consult the ASCE Library page for the current list; the point that endures is the breadth of the panel, which mirrors the breadth of the scope described above and allows the journal to referee highly specialised work, from centrifuge modelling to contaminant hydrogeology, within its own community.

Indexing and Citation Standing

The journal is covered by Scopus, with Scopus-derived listings giving coverage from 1996 onward, and it is listed in the Web of Science Science Citation Index Expanded in the journal-directory sources consulted. Secondary bibliometric services that track Scopus data attribute to it a CiteScore of 7.7 and an SJR of 1.553, with a Q1 placement in both Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology and in the environmental science (miscellaneous) category, and an h-index of 216; these figures are attributed here to the Scopus-based journal-listing services that publish them, and readers should check the current Scopus source record for the latest values, since such indicators are recalculated annually. Journal Citation Reports-based figures republished by secondary trackers put its impact factor in the region of 3.7 to 4.4 for the most recent years they report, after a long climb from below 1.0 in the early 2000s — a trajectory that itself tells a story about the growth of geotechnical research output and citation. None of these numbers should be read in isolation: in a practice-facing field, a journal's influence also runs through design guidance, codes and expert practice, channels that citation counts capture only partially.

Publication Pattern and How to Read the Journal

Directories list the journal as publishing 12 issues per year, and its volumes are correspondingly large. A typical issue mixes full-length research papers with practice-oriented contributions and case studies, and the journal also carries discussions and closures — the formal exchange in which readers comment on a published paper and the authors reply. That discussion culture is a distinctive feature of ASCE journals and one of their strengths: interpretation errors, alternative analyses and additional field evidence enter the record in public, attached to the original paper. For practitioners, the case-study papers and discussions are often the most immediately usable part of an issue; for researchers, the journal functions as a cumulative archive in which a topic such as liquefaction assessment or excavation-induced building damage can be followed across decades of linked papers, discussions and closures.

Writing for This Journal: Practical Guidance

Prospective authors should start from the journal's own test: does the work have a clear and significant potential for practical application? A theoretically elegant model with no demonstrated engineering consequence is a weak submission here, however well executed; conversely, a modest method that is convincingly validated against field data can be a strong one. Manuscripts should therefore state, early and plainly, what an engineer could do differently because of the paper. Field data, load tests, monitoring records and documented failures are prized evidence; where a study is purely numerical or laboratory-based, authors should explain how its parameters and conclusions transfer to field scale. ASCE's data and code expectations, described above, should be planned for before submission rather than after acceptance, including any confidentiality limits that apply to project data. Authors should also follow ASCE's current author instructions on the ASCE Library and Author Center for manuscript preparation, length, figures and referencing, since those requirements are updated by the publisher and govern whether a compliant manuscript proceeds to review. Finally, authors working in the journal's well-developed topic areas should engage seriously with the prior ASCE literature on their question, including published discussions; reviewers drawn from this community will notice when that record has been ignored.

Who Reads It, and Why It Matters

The readership combines university researchers, geotechnical consultants, specialist contractors, dam and infrastructure owners, regulators and graduate students. For that audience the journal performs three functions at once: it is an archive of tested knowledge about ground behaviour, a forum in which contested interpretations are argued out through discussions and closures, and a bridge by which research results enter design practice. Its papers are cited in textbooks, design manuals and expert reports, and its case histories are routinely used in teaching because they document real ground, real instruments and real consequences. A researcher choosing where to submit, and a practitioner choosing what to read, are both dealing with a journal whose reputation rests less on any single metric than on that long, continuous role in the profession.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the ISSNs of the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering?
Print ISSN 1090-0241 and electronic ISSN 1943-5606, as recorded on this site's record for the journal and in journal directories.

Who publishes it?
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), in the United States, through the ASCE Library.

What subjects does it cover?
The broad practice of geotechnical engineering: foundations, retaining structures, excavations, ground improvement, tunnelling, soil and rock behaviour, site characterisation, slope stability, dams, earthquake engineering, environmental geotechnics, geosynthetics, computer modelling, groundwater work, and coastal and offshore geotechnics, per ASCE's aims and scope.

Does it accept theoretical papers?
Yes, but ASCE states that theoretical papers should show a clear and significant potential for practical application; practice-oriented papers and case studies are particularly welcomed.

How often does it appear?
Journal directories list 12 issues per year.

Who is the Editor-in-Chief?
ASCE's listing at the time of writing names Catherine O'Sullivan of Imperial College London; board membership changes, so check the ASCE Library page for the current board.

Are citation metrics published for it?
Yes, by the indexing services: Scopus-based listings consulted for this profile report a CiteScore of 7.7, SJR 1.553 and Q1 category placements, attributed to those services in the indexing section above; always verify the current figures in Scopus or Journal Citation Reports directly.

What about data and code sharing?
ASCE encourages authors to deposit data and code underlying published results in a recognised public repository, and to state limitations plainly where sharing is prevented by proprietary, confidentiality or licensing constraints.

Sources and Verification Note

This profile is based on the ASCE Library's aims, scope and editorial board page for the journal; on this site's own record for post 333621 (title, publisher and ISSNs 1090-0241 and 1943-5606); and on Scopus-derived and Web of Science-derived journal listings for frequency, coverage, abbreviation and citation indicators, each attributed in the text where used. Details that could not be verified from those sources — such as acceptance rates and review turnaround times, which ASCE does not publish for this title in the sources consulted — are not stated in this profile rather than estimated.