Contractors McIlwain Civil Engineering and SEE Civil Joint Venture have secured the next stage of early works for Queensland’s Mooloolah River Interchange, a key connection for the Sunshine Motorway and Nicklin Way on the Sunshine Coast. The package centres on large-scale earthworks and embankment construction to build up formation levels and stabilise ground conditions ahead of the full interchange upgrade. Geotechnical focus will be on settlement control and embankment performance in a coastal, flood-prone corridor before major bridge and traffic-switching works proceed.

New climate-modelling by the British Geological Survey (BGS) projects that up to 11% of UK homes – several million properties – could face increased clay-related subsidence risk by 2070 as hotter, drier summers drive greater soil shrink–swell. The work uses UKCP18 climate scenarios to map susceptibility on shrink–swell clays, flagging particular exposure in southern and eastern England where high-plasticity London Clay and similar formations are widespread. For geotechnical and asset engineers, this points to tighter foundation design, tree and drainage management, and targeted monitoring of existing low-rise housing stock.

Professor Lyesse Laloui has been elected President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) for 2026–2029 at the Vienna Council Meeting held alongside the XXI ICSMGE 2026. Laloui, Chair Professor at EPFL and director of its Laboratory for Soil Mechanics, brings a portfolio of more than 560 publications and 19,000+ citations spanning constitutive modelling, energy geostructures, CO₂ storage and multiphase porous media. The Council also confirmed XXII ICSMGE for Shanghai in November 2029 and the next Council Meeting in Istanbul, 20–25 August 2028.