Geotechnical and Geological Data Management in Urban Environments: A Case Study of Casablanca, Morocco

Abstract

In order to manage urbanization in a responsible way, it is even more critical to perform either a prior geotechnical study or a geological study before the projects are started. However, performing these investigations usually brings about some extra expenditure which can raise the cost of the project by ten times the original budget. This case study is on the city of Casablanca, Morocco and aims at carrying out geotechnical and geological survey of soil and rocks using GIS and geostatical approaches. Its primary aim is to develop a systematic geotechnical database and relevant geotechnical maps which can be readily used by practitioners across civil and geotechnical engineering sectors without undertaking new geotechnical exploration. For this purpose, geological and geotechnical maps as well as data gathered from 100 region surveys were collected and processed. It has been demonstrated that the substratum of the located area in Casablanca, contains the deposits of silt, calcarenites, marls, graywackes, and siltstones. The oldest deposits date to the Middle Cambrian while the youngest to the Holocene. Two important maps one of material bearing capacity and other of substratum for accurate depiction on geotechnical data was prepared by integrating geostatistical concepts into GIS. The soil bearing capacity at the study site was found to range between 2 bars to 4 bars with moderate bearing grade structure in the area.