Editorial: Geo-Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation
Following the success of the Second International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering for Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation in May 2008 in Nanjing, China, we have received and accepted a proposal to devote a Special Issue of the Journal to address this important topic. Professor Hanlong Liu, Dr An Deng and Professor Jian Chu have been appointed as Guest Editors of the Special Issue. Over the last 18 months, they have worked very hard to solicit contributions from leading experts in the field and to help with organising the review of the papers for possible publication in Geomechanics and Geoengineering. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Guest Editors and all the authors for their excellent efforts and contributions to the Special Issue and the Journal. I'm also grateful to Caroline Dolby for her professional efforts in helping the organisation of the review of the papers.
On a different but important note, I would like to report that a Prize Panel comprising Professor A. Gens, Professor J. Zhao, Professor I.D. Moore and Professor J.H. Yin have gone through a very rigorous review process to select a paper from all the papers published in Geomechanics and Geoengineering in 2009 to receive the Journal's 2009 Best Paper Award. The Award includes a certificate and a cheque of £250. I'm pleased to announce that the Journal's Best Paper Award for 2009 has been won by Daniela Porcino, Vincenzo Marciano and Vito Nicola Ghionna for their paper entitled Influence of cyclic pre-shearing on undrained behaviour of carbonate sand in simple shear tests, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 151–161, 2009.
Many congratulations to the winning Authors on their Best Paper Award. I would particularly like to thank all members of the Prize Panel for devoting their precious time and efforts to this important review and selection process.