The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal association for geotechnical engineers in the UK.
This will be held as an in-person event and will also be webcast live.
Photographs may be taken at the event and used for BGA promotional purposes; if you have any objections please contact the BGA via email.
Attending the lecture
Please note that owing to refurbishment works at the Great Hall, Imperial College London, the venue for this year’s lecture has been changed to Ondaatje Lecture Theatre at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), South Kensington, London.
Ondaatje Lecture Theatre has a seating capacity of 700. An overflow room with a live streaming will also be available at the same venue.
This arrangement is planned to apply to the 2027 lecture only. The 2028 lecture is expected to return to Imperial College upon completion of the refurbishment works.
If you plan to attend the Lecture in person, please note:
Watching the lecture on line
If you plan to watch the lecture online:
The Lecture will be streamed live via YouTube. The link for livestreaming will be provided here closer to the event.
The Rankine Lecture
The Rankine Lecture is widely viewed as the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics. It commemorates William John Macquorn Rankine, Professor of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University, who was one of the first engineers in the UK to make a significant contribution to soil mechanics. He is best known for his theory for the earth pressure on retaining walls.
The Rankine Dinner
The Rankine Dinner will be held after the lecture. The Dinner is ticket only. The call for tickets for the dinner will be announced nearer the event.
The dinner will be held at the usual venue at Imperial College, which is about a 5-minute walk from the RGS.
The British Geotechnical Association
24.03.2027
17:30 - 19:30
Ondaatje Lecture Theatre at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), South Kensington, London.
BGA Meetings
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served before the lecture.
As two of the most widespread natural components of Earth’s land surface, soils and plants form the foundation of human civilisation. Yet, soil-plant-atmosphere-water (SPAW) interactions have long driven catastrophic hazards such as landslides, debris flows, and wildfires. Mitigating these threats while harnessing the benefits of soil-plant systems for human sustainability remains a major challenge, particularly under a changing climate.
In this Lecture, a new inter-disciplinary field termed Ecological Geotechnics (Eco-Geotechnics) will be proposed. Integrating state-dependent unsaturated soil mechanics with botany, a newly developed theory governing coupled SPAWs will be introduced. Using this new theory, the mechanisms of complex SPAW and multiple engineering applications of vegetated soil are investigated under various climatic conditions such as extreme rainstorms and thermal cycles. Explorations and insights from physical modelling and numerical simulations of diverse SPAW interactions will be presented across multiple domains. Apart from a forensic investigation of a recent fatal slope failure claiming 52 lives, these explorations demonstrate the effects of root architecture on induced soil suction and how vegetation stabilises soil slopes and enhances the performance of landfill covers under extreme climates. Finally, broader applications will be explored, including improving the yield and quality of medicinal herbal plants and assisting sustainable crop cultivation under lunar gravity in preparation for possible human habitation on the Moon in the near future.
Widely viewed as the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics and was first held in 1961.
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