The International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG) has recently published its "Guidelines for the development and application of engineering geological models on projects”. It is available to download free of charge here.
The aim of the guide is to provide succinct, practical, accessible and authoritative advice on the effective use of Engineering Geological Models (EGM). This covers a wide range of applications, including civil engineering, mining, geohazard studies, offshore studies, land-use planning and environmental assessments.
The central premise is that an EGM is not simply a 2D or 3D visualisation of a data set. Instead the guidelines define an EGM as “a comprehensive knowledge framework that supports the interpretation and assessment of the engineering geological conditions and allows the interaction of these conditions with the proposed project to be evaluated, so that appropriate engineering decisions can be made throughout the life cycle of the project from inception to decommissioning”.
The guidelines are intended for stakeholders from around the world that are working on projects of all scales that interact with or require an understanding of the ground.