 been discussing about the scope of environmental geomechanics, its genesis and the main emphasis was that why this course should be studied and practiced. There is more emphasis on the practice of the concepts which we are talking about here. In continuation with this, in today's lecture, I will elaborate upon the scope of environmental geomechanics further in more compartmentalized manner. The first job of an environmental geotechnologist would be to assess the level of pollution and it is understood that why this exercise should be done because the source of contamination of the geoenvironment is the pollutant or the pollutants. So it becomes very, very important for everybody to understand how the pollutants or the waste is being discharged and I hope you will agree that the waste is being discharged mostly from the industrial units because most of you are aware of the municipal solid waste but here the focus of the discussion is mostly the industrial activities because the impact of industrial activities on the geoenvironment is quite detrimental and this is what is being realized. Now this is a job of each organization, in fact the industry to first assess what type of pollutants they are going to discharge in the environment and I am sure that you must be aware that at the time of writing a DPR for a project normally these issues have to be declared. So after the DPR is ready normally the DPR goes for environmental wetting, we call it as environmental assessment or environmental impact analysis, so this is what is known as EIA. So these are the mandatory things even if you are doing soil investigation these days the environmental impact has to be studied of the activities which are going to be taken up at an industrial unit. Now I have been trying in last several since several years particularly through the government and Indian government to make the guidelines and to assess you know what type of pollutants are being discharged from different industries and ultimately this exercise might lead to creation of a you know what you call it as a zonation map sort of a thing which would be a pollution, zonation map of the country. Now this is where our interaction the industry starts, most of you must be questioning that ultimately where the environmental geomechanics concepts are utilized. So this is a subject or this is a philosophy which is mostly you know adopted by the industries and they are point experts consultants who help them in coming out of these situations or many times government bodies they approach you to build them out from a given situation. So anyway I mean this is a societal work where the technology is being used the knowledge is being used to understand what is the impact of the human activities on the geomechanics. So the first thing is if you visit any industry or even the mining sector also the mining is going on that is the product main product or for that matter any industry you visit they are producing something say pharmaceutical industry. So the pharmaceuticals which they are producing are the main products but in the process whatever is being generated and you do not have any immediate value for this is what is known as the byproduct alright. So this is the story of you know the balance between the product and the byproduct first question is how much mining should be done so that the amount of overburden which is coming out can be handled easily. Now this is a very, very qualitative statement but once you start working on this statement you realize that this can be quantified for a given amount of mining how much waste I am going to generate and what I am going to do with that. Now this is what is meant by assessment of pollutants which are being discharged either on the surface or inside the soil deposits this could be soil it could be rocks whatever. So this is where we talk about the disposal handling and storage. So as we were discussing in the previous lectures and you rightly said Gaurav that you know whatever mining overburdens are coming they store them and they have developed manmade mountains in the regions and which are not very stable during earthquake or even during excessive rains. So these are the major challenges which industries are facing right now where the geo technology is required how I am going to dispose the industrial waste how I am going to handle it first of all and how I am going to store it because I hope you realize industry has a limited space to operate from alright they have premises. Now it is a very interesting story that the product and byproduct has to be created from within that premises itself clear unless there are some designated places which have been created by the municipality or by the government bodies alright. So the chances are that most of the time the storage of the industrial byproducts is normally done within the premises only clear. So that means now you can realize the big havoc is if I want my production to remain unaffected I should be having enough space to store the industrial waste. The second question is the more and more production is occurring the more and more byproducts are going to generate and there could be a situation where the storage space might become less most of the industries are facing this acute space crunch. Apart from the space when you are piling up these byproducts there are chances that these byproducts might cause a sort of a hazard there could be a collapse of the heap alright there could be a flooding and during the flooding the entire thing may get washed out and hence it may inundate your facilities. You will not like to this to happen is it not it is a very you know unthoughtful situation if it occurs. So the first thing with which we interact with the different organizations is that you like to assess the type of pollutants which they are producing and where they are discharging it where they are storing it how they are handling it what the disposal practices are whether this is being disposed in a dry form or whether it is being disposed in a slurry form or whatever gone are the days when people used to throw all these things you know unknowingly unnoticeable on the highways or in the water bodies because now the environmental rules are very very stringent so you cannot just throw them in a water body alright. So if you read the story about the disposal of the industrial waste up to a certain extent people used to dispose them in water bodies and they used to pollute the entire thing. Now again the question is the more and more industrialization occurs the more and more this problem is becoming serious. So when environmental geotechnologist deals with these type of problems for him or her this becomes a patient it becomes a case study and then what we try to do is we try to give a solution to these issues clear. So this is the first scope of environmental geomechanics that means you assess the extent of pollution and where the whole operations are being done it so happens when you are storing the waste it might come in contact with the environment. So the attributes of the environment are mostly solar, light, sunlight, wind, humidity, temperature, rains, what else. So these are the attributes of the environment alright I think we have defined all the parameters which would create an environment. In extreme situations like what is prevailing right now in city like Bombay when it rains heavily or when the flooding occurs most of the cities in the country are flooded right now you are aware of this. And people are debating whether this is a natural phenomena or this is a manmade phenomena. So you will find you know articles on both the aspects people say you know this is manmade I do not know what is your view on this but I hope you will get convinced that this is manmade. So if this type of situation occurs where you are stacked the industrial byproduct and mostly the quantities and the extent of the heaps which you create are so big that you cannot cover them so easily overnight. So chances are that this material is going to interact with the environment alright. Suppose fly ash I am sure all of you must be aware of and you must be aware of that what are the hazards associated with fly ash. So if I am doing dry disposal of fly ash which is normally not done nowadays when wind velocity is increased what is going to happen these particles will become airborne and they contaminate the entire surroundings. When you are doing wet disposal of fly ash there are other issues because the slurry which you have made by dissolving or by mixing the fly ash or an industrial waste with water will have its own stories. So the chances are when you are allowing this type of interaction alright with the environment the water percolates through these heaps and the leachates get produced I am sure you must be aware of the word leachate I will discuss this in details today. Now these leachates are the chemical species which might contain heavy metals heavy metals are the ones which will act as a contaminant in the due course of time alright. So these are the heavy metals which pollute the ground water which pollute the soil and so on. So the second scope of the work or the scope of the environmental geomechanics would be when the interaction of industrial byproducts or the waste happens with environment particularly the rains the water percolates through the entire heap leachates get formed and they migrate into the geo environment soils, rocks, ground water clear. So we would like to study this how this whole process occurs this is unavoidable you cannot stop this process because as I said the extent of the heaps is so big the volumes are so big that you cannot really do much. Now this is the genesis of the contaminant transport studies which is at full swing in most of the western world and of course in our country also but not many people are still aware of these processes but I am sure the most of the western world has already mastered these subjects and now this is high time when India and developing countries should follow these type of concepts and our students and professionals should be trained for this. So this is not a very good scenario contaminant transport alright but we have to study it mainly we like to study how contaminants are going to migrate in the geomaterials soils, rocks, ground water and the combination of the three. The third important scope of the studies would be I do not want this to spread much contaminant transport alright so I want to curtail this I want to contain this so that the disease does not spread in the entire body. So what normally surgeons do they amputate your hands legs body part is it not amputation means they cut it they eliminate the whole thing. So this is what actually we will also do we will do the surgery and we will try that this spread of contaminant in the geoenvironment does not become excess now this is what is known as containment alright and this work only geo technical engineers can do why because you are the guys who have done seepage theories you are the guys who have done shear strength of the material you are the guys who have done compressibility of the material consolidation of the material and everything you have done clear which others have not done. So these are very specialized subjects and these are the realm of modern day geo technical engineering I hope you can realize this. So coming back to the point if I want to contain the spread of contaminants particularly so that they do not attack my water bodies the aquifers otherwise what is going to happen all these contaminants will find out a easy pathway and they will come and sit into the aquifers and that water you are going to take out for drinking purpose and you understand what health issues you are going to face later on. So in most of the parts of the countries and cities these type of problems are already happening you know in our own country there are several states which are famous for groundwater contamination eastern part of the country is famous for arsenic and you know the problems associated with the arsenic when you consume it and so on I hope you are aware of this if not then better read it ok the fourth issue is many times containment might be very expensive or it might not work 100% efficiently alright. So under those circumstances what we are going to do and I know that the soil mass water groundwater and rocks have already got contaminated so then comes the remediation cleanup washing alright so we call this as remediation so fully being aware of the fact that the geomaterial is contaminated I would like to remediate it like treating a human body what doctors do they are aware of the disease they are aware of the extent of the disease and then they you know manipulate with the doses of the medicine in such a manner that the patient can be treated in a due course of time. The last but not the least scope of our activities would be method of creating value added products so this is what is known as valorization V A L O R I Z A T I O N valorization so valorization is something where you are trying to create value out of a material clear so what we are trying to do we are trying to valorize you guys you agree with this right man we are doing valorization of human beings value addition to anything whatever value addition we are doing by giving a lot of ideas by making your brain to work to think ahead of time alright so this is what the valorization is creation of value added things in any material. So this is where the concept of 3 Rs comes in the picture we say recycle recovery reuse and the fourth R which has got added to this is very good excellent so reduce what is that you want to reduce not the production of the products but generation of byproducts that means what you have to do you have to upgrade the entire industrial process in such a manner that earlier you are producing let us say X portion of the byproducts now this should become X by 2 X by 4 X by 10 clean technologies I hope you are aware of some of the clean cold technology is a beautiful example of how you can reduce the level of contamination of the geo environment is this fine any questions here so have you understood what is the scope of the environmental geomechanics more or less the entire thing looks like the procedures which are followed by surgeons. So this is where I say that our profession is very similar to the ones which is being adopted by medical professionals doctors and surgeons and I will emphasize on this hence forth on most of the things which I will speak out so what do we do we have a patient in the form of an industry in the form of a polluting body and then what is our job do whatever you can come out of the situation clear. So truly speaking the practice of environmental geomechanics is bottom to top of this ladder I hope you will agree with that the first thing I should be doing is whatever waste is getting generated I should try to reduce its volume its intensity this is part clear the second thing is I should try to recover whatever I can recover from this extraction of the precious things whatever is remaining I should recycle it and again make it a part of the chain of the you know process and then try to reuse it a good example of this could be even the fly ash is also recombusted most of the time I hope you might have heard about this because if industrial plants are or the power plants are not working very efficiently the machineries are quite old the chances are that the unburned carbon in the fly ash could be very significant. So rather than disposing it of somewhere the logic says you recycle it and try to incinerate it to produce energy this is one of the optimal ideas which people are working on let us have a round of discussion see this subject is not which is which can be taught easily I hope you can realize you agree here the concepts can be discussed only and then ultimately who plays an important role the surgeon or the doctor because he understands the patient better this comes by practice or by sharing the thoughts or by reading more and more about what is happening in the world today. But let me tell you one thing you will realize that this is the future of geomechanics otherwise the conventional geomechanics would not have much of scope in the present day scenario if you really want to do something interesting you have to be on your toes to adopt new practices is this okay yes sir as you said there are heaps of disposals. So can we made some galleries or pipelines inside them to collect those what lead chains or contaminants so it cannot be connect with the soil actual present under it it is possible to make. So on paper everything is possible no so if you see the designs which have been done by the industries everything exists on the paper number one nothing exist in field number two why you require a very strong will to execute things which are going to be good practices and by nature we do not want to follow good practices you agree we do not believe in good practices so everything is on paper but when you dig out then site and you show ask them to show it whether it is there or not you will find that they did not provide this why they just wanted to cut the corners save that 10 cents and which has put them in a bigger bigger mess today. So utopian thought everything exists on paper make sure whether it is existing in the field or not fine the quick answer to your question most of the things you have to discover. We have studied that like four methods of base disposal like we will create pits and dispose of the solid waste and we create parking spots and all over that so in the long run these are also going to affect the environment negatively right. So half information is correct your half information is not correct because nobody is going to let you dispose of anything these days why rules there are many wash dogs there are many NGOs what these NGOs are doing protect the environment God knows but anyway there are so many interests clear towards their job we call them environmental wash dogs alright so most of the projects if you read the history they are under big question mark. So civil engineers say well this project has to be done someone else says no these are the issues first you answer them so all the projects are held up we are losing time and money and people are unable to develop they are not able to enjoy the comforts so imagine you know when you come into it you will realize that these are the issues technology is one part of this one eighth of the pie which I discuss social issues, political issues, economic issues you might have given a solution which nobody will be able to buy they will say it is very expensive they will take 2 years to call you back like ok whatever you said 2 years back now let us do it some of my projects got materialized after 13 years you know this yeah so R and D is all about patients and whatever.