2nd International Workshop on Bio-Soil Interactions and Engineering, held at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK, September, 2011

生物过程在土壤工程行为中的作用，或“生物介导的土壤改善”，已成为岩土工程中的“热门话题”，正如美国国家科学院委员会“新千年的地质和岩土工程：研究和技术创新的机会”所预测的那样。2007年，第一届生物-土壤相互作用与工程研讨会召集了来自广泛学科的学者，以确定具有岩土工程应用潜力的生物过程。研讨会的结果提交给了NSF和英国资助机构（EPSRC， NRC），总结在一份报告中（DeJong et al. 2007），并在美国的两次会议（GeoCongress 2008和TRB 2008）上进行了讨论。从那时起，已经资助了十多个项目，50多位研究人员正在探索这一领域，并在全球范围内出版了50多本关于该主题的出版物。迄今为止所做的研究表明，一些土壤可以在实验室中通过生物活性进行修饰，从而显著提高其强度和刚度等工程特性。如果有可能在现场实现这些结果，可以预期在材料和能源使用方面节省大量资金。第二届国际研讨会的目标是确定哪些主题和应用具有最大的潜力，因此应被视为进一步研究的高优先级，哪些主题/应用似乎不太有希望，因此应被分配较低的优先级。讲习班的参加者还将评估这一新领域的研究生培训和发展方面的经验，并确定已经成功或看来有希望的方法。研讨会将于2011年9月下旬举行，为期2.5天。大约30名该领域的主要研究人员，其中大约一半来自美国，将在英国剑桥召开会议。国际参与者将被邀请来自英国、荷兰、比利时、以色列、法国、日本、中国和新加坡。研讨会目标将通过研讨会之前、期间和之后的一系列活动来实现，包括分发研讨会读本。其中包括参与者最近的出版物，概述了需要解决的主要问题的白皮书（每个参与者提交一份），工作组和完整的研讨会讨论的组合，每个工作组编写了关于其主题的研讨会讨论结果的白皮书摘要，并将研讨会成果交付给NSF报告，工程新闻摘要文章和期刊论文。研讨会为专家们提供了一个机会，让他们能够在一些传统领域的界面上会面和讨论一个领域，包括岩土工程、地球环境工程、地球科学、微生物学和生物工程。建议的研讨会将在相关的工程和科学界内外产生重大的更广泛的影响，包括：(a)发现新的环境安全工程解决方案，(b)工程问题的成本效益解决方案，(c)提高对科学问题的理解，(d)提高对建筑对自然的影响的理解，(e)研究人员的交叉教育，(f)确定改进本科教育的机会，(g)为这一新领域培养研究生。

The role of biological processes in the engineering behavior of soils, or "bio-mediated soil improvement," has become a "hot topic" in geotechnical engineering, as predicted by the National Academy of Sciences committee "Geological and Geotechnical Engineering in the New Millennium: Opportunities for Research and Technological Innovation." In 2007, the First Workshop on Bio-Soils Interactions and Engineering convened academics from a broad spectrum of disciplines to identify the biological processes that had potential for geotechnical applications. The results of the workshop were presented to NSF and UK funding agencies (EPSRC, NRC), summarized in a report (DeJong et al. 2007), and discussed at two conferences in the United States (GeoCongress 2008 and TRB 2008). Since that time, more than a dozen projects have been funded, more than 50 researchers are exploring this field, and more than 50 publications on the topic have been produced worldwide. The research done to date has shown that some soils can be modified in the laboratory by biological activity, resulting in significant enhancement in engineering properties such as strength and stiffness. If it is possible to achieve these results in the field, significant savings in materials and energy use can be expected. The objective of the Second International Workshop is to determine which topics and applications hold the greatest potential, and therefore should be considered high priority for further research, and which topics/applications appear to be less promising, and thus should be assigned a lower priority. Workshop participants will also assess experiences in the training and development of graduate students for this new field, and identify approaches that have been successful or appear to be promising. The workshop be held over a period of 2.5 days in late September, 2011. Approximately 30 leading researchers in the field, about one-half from the United States, will convene in Cambridge, England. The international participants will be invited from the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, France, Japan, China and Singapore. The workshop objective will be met through a series of activities prior to, during and after the workshop, including distribution of workshop ?reader? that includes recent publications by participants, collection of white papers (one submitted by each participant) outlining the primary issues that need to be addressed to advance the field, a mix of working group and full workshop discussions, with each working group writing up a white paper summary of the outcome of the workshop discussions on their topic, and delivery of workshop outcomes into an NSF report, a summary engineering news article and a journal paper.The workshop creates the opportunity to for experts to meet and discuss an area that resides at the interface of a number of traditional fields, including geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, geosciences, microbiology, and bioengineering. The proposed workshop will provide significant broader impacts within and beyond the associated engineering and science communities including: (a) discovery of new environmentally safe engineering solutions, (b) cost effective solutions to engineering problems, (c) improved understanding of scientific problems, (d) improved understanding of the effect of construction on nature, (e) cross-education of researchers, (f) identification of opportunities for improved undergraduate education, (g) development of graduate students for this new field.