In the future, by the end of 2025, at least half of construction projects, which is implemented under public-private partnership (PPP) conditions, will become 20–40% more expensive than planned indicators by the time of commissioning.

According to the forecasts of the Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA), 20% is an optimistic scenario, 40% is a pessimistic one. The both options take into account how much the situation will remain manageable due to currency fluctuations, personnel shortages, inflation, and supply disruptions.

It is proposed to solve the problem through the development of the legislative and regulatory environment, the use of “long-term” money (long-term borrowings, investments or loans) to refinance high-quality projects, through the extension of existing PPP support programs, through the issuance of project financing bonds, and through the stimulation of long-term savings of citizens through additional government guarantees.

Experts, who was interviewed by the editorial staff of the “GeoInfo” journal, stated that there is a rise in prices. And in some positions it is much more than 20–40%. Despite this, private investments in construction and production will only grow, because the state is the key driver of these investments.

Experts also noted that the rise in prices is caused not only by the sanctions, but also by a corruption component.

What does all of those mean? As a minimum, investors will continue to speed up construction, turning a blind eye to the fact that design and survey work was completed in record time and the results of the site investigation may have been “drawn” at all.

As long as the situation described in the article remains, it will be difficult for engineering surveyors to achieve the proper respect for their work and, therefore, proper payment of it.

The deadline for the introduction of the independent assessment of specialists’ qualifications was shifted by 12 months. It was deferred to the 1st of September, 2023. According to information from the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, the purpose of that was to reduce the negative influence of the sanctions on the construction industry.

No one is likely to shift the deadline. And whether you like it or not, you will have to pass the exam.

The new rules have only been voluntarily obeyed by companies or their individual employees, for whom it was “a choice without a choice”.

Experts think that even after the 1st of September there will be a lot of unexamined specialists.

The editorial staff of the GeoInfo journal has tried to figure out why it was decided to test engineering surveyors’, builders’ and designers’ knowledge. And we has tried to find out what they think about the independent assessment of specialists’ qualifications.find out what they think about the independent assessment of specialists’ qualifications.

The “HeadHunter” analytical center has presented new capabilities of the “hh.ru statistics” open service. Since it is becoming increasingly difficult for employers to fill vacancies, especially technical ones, it has been decided to develop this service as an independent platform to help them. In June, data on vacancies for people with disabilities was added to the service. And in July, the section on salaries appeared there.

The editorial staff of the “GeoInfo” journal studied the statistics of the HR (Human Resources) specialists in social networks, where the participants complain that “there are no people”, and asked entrepreneurs about their existing in the “no people” situation. Some experts told that they have their own databases of applicants, that they have learned to correspond with candidates so that those candidates would come to work, and that they invited students to come to them. And it turned out that the statistics are different. According to some sources, there are no people, according to other sources, there are people.

A year after the first publication, the editorial staff of the “GeoInfo” journal has again turned to the topic of import substitution of software. According to some experts, it will be relevant approximately for another five years, because creating and testing new programs takes lots of time.

The moods are different now. A year ago, Russian developers were presenting their programs timidly. Nowadays you don’t find such performances anymore.

Buyers have also changed. In addition, Russian software has no alternatives for protection against cybercriminals. And nevertheless, there are enough Russian companies that have been still waiting

We bring to the attention of the readers a slightly abridged and adapted translation of the article “Challenges for landscape architecture: designed urban ecosystems and social acceptance” by Emma Salizzoni, who is an Italian investigator (Salizzoni E., 2021). It was published in 2021 in the special issue “Constructed Natures: Shaping Ecology through Landscape Design” of the journal “Sustainability” by the MDPI publisher (“Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute”). This article is in the open access on the MDPI website under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which allows it to be distributed, modified, remixed, translated, adapted, and used for any purpose (even commercial one) provided that the types of changes are noted and the original source is referred to. In our case, the reference to the original paper (Salizzoni E., 2021) is given at the end.

The creation of new ecosystems within urban contexts has undeniable benefits for city dwellers in terms of increased urban biodiversity and related provisioning of ecosystem services. However, designing new ecosystems in areas with a high population density or which are subjected to intensive use may also generate negative impacts on the anthropic dimension and cause social conflicts that, in turn, can undermine the effectiveness of projects. This article (Salizzoni E., 2021) focuses on the quite unexplored issue of anthropic “costs” that new urban ecosystems can generate, and on design and management challenges that they open up in terms of social acceptance.

Landscape Architecture is an interdisciplinary branch of urban planning aimed at organizing the environment by combining natural, building and architectural components into a holistic composition from aesthetic, environmental, functional, and technical and economical viewpoints. Its goal is to create a favorable outdoor environment for the life activities, rest, relaxation, and recreation of people in outdoor spaces in cities, towns, suburban, and resort areas. So, Landscape Architecture seems to be the most appropriate framework for adopting a holistic approach to the design of new urban ecosystems. 

The article (Salizzoni E., 2021) analyzes three Italian landscape architecture projects. All those projects adopted spatial measures oriented at fostering perception, understanding, and acceptance of the recreated ecosystems, while preserving them from anthropic impacts. However, those efforts are sometimes jeopardized by a lack of concomitant operational measures, such as stakeholder involvement and site maintenance. Co-existence of delicate habitats and urban functions is thus not utopian but asks that projects effectively integrate ecological sciences, landscape design and management, as well as social-oriented practices.

We present an adapted and slightly abridged translation of the article by T.B. Karu-Jayasundara, an Australian author, “The gravitational impact of the Sun and the Moon on heavy mineral deposits and dust particles in low gravity regions of the Earth”. It was published in the “International Journal of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences” by the WASET publisher. This is an open access paper in the ZENODO repository website, which is maintained by the CERN European organization under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to distribute, mix, adapt, translate and use this article, even for commercial purposes, provided that the original source is referenced. In our case, the full reference to the source for the translation (Kara Jayasundara, 2019) is given in the end

The Earth’s gravity is not uniform. The satellite imageries of the Earth’s surface from NASA have revealed a number of various gravity anomaly regions all over the globe. When the Moon rotates around the Earth, its gravity has a major physical influence on a number of regions on the Earth. These physical changes can be seen by the tides. The tides make sea levels high and low in coastal regions. During high tide, the gravitational force of the Moon pulls the Earth’s gravity so that the total gravitational intensity of the Earth is reduced; it is further reduced in the low gravity regions of the Earth. This reduction in gravity helps keep the suspended particles such as dust in the atmosphere, sand grains in the sea water for longer (and sometimes it results in their additional lift. – Ed.). Dramatic differences can be seen from the floating dust in the low gravity regions when compared with other regions.

The above phenomena can be demonstrated from experiments. The experiments have to be done in high and low gravity regions of the earth during high and low tides, which will assist in comparing the final results. One of the experiments that can be done is by using a cylinder filled with water about 80 cm tall, a few particles, which have the same density and same diameter (about 1 mm), and a stop watch. The selected particles were dropped from the surface of the water in the cylinder and the time taken for the particles to reach the bottom of the cylinder was measured using the stop watch. The times of high and low tide charts can be obtained from the regional government authorities. This concept is demonstrated by the particle drop times taken at high and low tides. The results of the experiments show that the particle settlement time is less in low tides and more in high tides.

The experiment for dust particles in air can be collected on filters, which are cellulose ester membranes, using a vacuum pump. The dust on filters can be used to make slides according to the NOHSC method. Counting the dust particles on the slides can be done using a phase contrast microscope. The results show that the concentration of dust is high during high tides and low during low tides. As a result of the high tides in low gravity regions, a high concentration of heavy minerals sediments on placer deposits and dust particles retain in the atmosphere for longer.

hese conditions are remarkably exhibited in the lowest gravity regions of the Earth, mainly in the regions of India, Sri Lanka and in the middle part of the Indian Ocean. The biggest heavy mineral placer deposits are found in coastal regions of India and Sri Lanka and heavy dust particles are found in the atmosphere of India, particularly in the Delhi region.

(It is quite possible that during site investigations for the construction of a number of objects (for example, resorts) the gravitational field should also be measured, as well as research during tides should be performed, which could help choose a place for the construction where will be less dust particles in the air and sea water. – Ed.).

We bring to the attention of the readers an slightly abridged and adapted translation of the report “Slope structural health monitoring method against rainfall-induced shallow landslide” by Japanese researchers (Koizumi et al., 2019), made in 2019 at the 7th International Conference of Euro-Asia Civil Engineering Forum. That report was also published as an article in the “Materials Science and Engineering” journal by the Publisher of the Institute of Physics (IOP), a British scientific charity organization that has become truly international. This is an open access paper in the official IOP website. It is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (CC BY 3.0), which allows you to distribute, mix, adapt, translate and use publications, even for commercial purposes, provided that the original sources are cited. In our case, the full reference to the source for the translation (Koizumi et al., 2019) is given in the end.

The structural health monitoring of a slope against rainfall-induced shallow landslides has become an important issue in Japan with the recent instances of extreme weather. In particular, the early detection of a sudden rainfallinduced shallow landslide is well known to be relatively difficult compared with that of a slow-moving landslide. Thus, local governments or civilstructure management companies provide residents or users with early warning information of a disaster via rainfall-based data. However, rainfall information is not enough to predict the risk of individual slope disasters because it does not directly reflect the soil-moisture condition of a slope. To solve this problem, a soil moisture-based index (iQS) is proposed. The applicability of iQS in a real slope was evaluated using the result obtained by monitoring a real slope during heavy rainfall along an expressway. The monitoring results of the real slope were seen to agree well with the results of past laboratory experiments. This implies that slope deformation owing to the rise in water level does not occur unless the volumetric water content exceeds the value of the quasi-saturated volumetric water content (the maximum volumetric soil moisture at constant rain intensity in non-saturated conditions denoted as IQS) of the real slope. Based on this result, iQS can be used for predicting the risk of shallow landslides at an early stage.

We bring to the attention of the readers a slightly abridged and adapted translation of the article “Analytical calculation of critical anchoring length of steel bar and GFRP antifloating anchors in rock foundation” by Chinese authors (Nan Yan et al., 2021). It was published in 2021 in the peer-reviewed journal “Mathematical Problems in Engineering” by the Egyptian scientific publisher “Hindawi Publishing Corporation”. This article is in the open access on the Hindawi website under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which allows it to be distributed, modified, remixed, translated, adapted, and used for any purpose (even commercial one) provided that the types of changes are noted and the original source is referred to. In our case, the reference to the original paper (Nan Yan et al., 2021) is given at the end.

Antifloating anchors are widely used during the construction of slab foundations to prevent uplift. However, existing methods for calculating the critical length of these anchors have limited capabilities and therefore require further research. As the mechanisms which govern the displacement and stability of antifloating anchors are closely related to those of piles subject to uplift, a simplified anchor model has been developed based on existing concentric thin-walled cylinder shear transfer models used for pile design.

Analytical expressions for the critical length of the steel bar and GFRP (glass fiber reinforced polymer) antifloating anchors in rock are derived accordingly before demonstrating the validity of the method through engineering examples.

The research results show that when the length of an antifloating anchor is less than a critical length, shear slip failure occurs between the anchor and surrounding material due to excessive shear stress. When the length of an anchor approaches the critical length, the shear stress gradually decreases to the undisturbed state. If the anchor length is larger than the critical length, the uplift loads are safely transferred to the ground without causing failure.

The ratio of elastic moduli of the anchor and rock mass was found to be positively correlated with the critical anchoring length. Because the elastic modulus of GFRP bars is lower than that of steel bars, the critical anchoring length of GFRP bars is greater than that of steel bars under the same anchorto-rock modulus ratio (Ea /Es ).

The results show that the proposed calculation method for the critical lengths of antifloating anchors appears valid and could provide a theoretical basis for the design of antifloating anchors after further refinement.

Specialists of AO “GK SHANEKO” [JSC “SHANEKO Group of Companies”] have experience in mapping permafrost soils and taliks in frozen soils, zones of fracturing and crushing, tectonic zones, as well as in identifying other local heterogeneities in engineering-geological sections. They also have experience in studying the contamination of territories as a result of oil spills, identifying ore objects, and identifying ore-bearing and ore-controlling structures. In the presented paper, the leading geophysicist of this company, Sergey Anikeev, briefly outlined the capabilities of using electrical prospecting by vertical electrical sounding and electrical tomography methods for solving engineering-geological problems (mainly for constructing engineering-geological models based on the obtained geoelectric sections). He also gave examples of performing electrical tomographic studies to clarify distribution of permafrost soils.

In modern geotechnical practice, the use of ground anchors, including anchor piles, plays a very important role. They ensure the safety of construction and operation of buildings and structures, reduction of time and money costs for zero-cycle work, and the possibility to work in tight urban conditions, difficult natural ones, as well as in remote areas. This paper briefly provides information on the componentry, creation and application of such kind of anchor systems (mainly by the example of the TITAN technology).

We bring to the attention of the readers of the Geoinfo journal a brief note on the results of very interesting experiments jointly conducted by three specialized organizations (Sibstroyinvest-M LLC, Novosibirsk; Izyskatel’ LLC, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky; RPB LLC, Novosibirsk) to increase the strength, protect against corrosion, and prolong the service life of drilling tools by processing their surface layer by the method of gas vacuum carbonitration (carbonitriding).

Currently, the Rybinsk Reservoir is one of the oldest and largest reservoirs in the central part of Russia. Despite the gradual decrease in the reservoir bank transformation, in some areas it currently has a decisive influence on the development of geological processes. The purpose of the presented investigation was to study the features of the development of the slope gravitational processes in the area located on the right bank of the Volga River (in the upper part of the Rybinsk Reservoir) near the village of Gorokhovo. It is a slope along the river up to 17 m high with a pronounced three-tier geological structure. In that relatively small area, numerous modern manifestations of geological processes such as earthfall, earthfalllandslide, landslide, sloughing, and linear erosion ones were found. The relationship between the development of geological processes and the structural features of the slope was revealed. Earthfall and earthfall-landslide processes are inherent in the lower part of the slope, sloughing is inherent in the middle part, and suffusion landslides are inherent in the upper part. Earthfall and earthfall-landslide processes lead to the formation of scarps, and suffusion landslides lead to the formation of saucer-shaped depressions in the upland part of the slope near its edge. Linear erosion processes are characterized by a limited spread and are expressed in relief in the form of a hanging ravine and newly formed gullies. Slope processes spatial variability, which was associated with irregular lateral river erosion and with variability of quaternary formations, was revealed. The described area is characterized by a complex hydrological regime: both the backwater from the reservoir and the slow flow of the Volga River influence on the activities of the processes. The revealed features of the geological conditions determine the duration of the decaying dynamics of the geological processes in the area where the Volga River flows into the Rybinsk Reservoir.