International Conference on Advances and Innovations in Soft Soil Engineering 2026

As global land development expands into coastal regions, offshore reclamation areas, and wetlands, the geotechnical challenges posed by soft soils are becoming more critical.

These soils, including highly sensitive clays, marine silty clays, organic soils, peats, loose sands, and dredged soils, are known for their high compressibility, water content, and complex mechanical properties, making construction projects in such areas problematic. To address these challenges, soft soil engineering is evolving with innovative technologies and approaches.

This conference, organised under the auspices of the ISSMGE Technical Committee 214 on "Foundation Engineering for Difficult Soft Soil Conditions" and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Engineers KIVI, will showcase the latest developments in testing, modelling, monitoring and construction and improvement techniques for soft soils. It will provide a platform for researchers, engineers, and industry professionals to exchange expertise and discuss how these innovations can be applied to address modern construction challenges in soft soil environments.

The conference will take place at Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands, between 24-26 August 2026.

Themes
The conference aims to highlight and discuss the most recent state-of-the-art developments in soft soil engineering including although not limited to the following themes:

• Design, construction, performance and monitoring on soft soils
• Developments in laboratory and in situ testing
• Behaviour of soft soils including Bio-Chemo-Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical coupling
• Constitutive and numerical modelling of soft soils
• On-shore, near-shore and off-shore soft soils engineering
• Climate impact and resilience, including vegetation
• Machine learning and data analysis
• Soft soils in Geo-engineering education