Reliability-based geotechnical design

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The ground on which we found our structures is one of the most variable and uncertain of all engineering materials and is therefore highly amenable to a probabilistic treatment. Since geotechnical engineers must often make do with the existing ground at a site, a key question in any geotechnical design then becomes "How should we design our geotechnical system so as to achieve an acceptable safety level?" The question involves a number of other important issues such as: How can we reduce our uncertainty about the ground's engineering properties? How confident are we in our prediction and design models? How should we adjust our designs to account for differing failure consequences? And, most importantly, how should design codes be implemented in order to address all of these issues and still arrive at societally acceptable levels of safety?