Some Applications of Geostatistics to Civil Engineering

The geostatistical approach is more and more often used in civil engineering project, where many constraints must be satisfied in terms of risk and security. The study of the tunnel project under the English Channel, shows how geostatistics can be applied to combine data from wells, sonic and seismic surveys, taking account of various measurement errors, to produce contour maps and section maps as accurate as possible. The calculation and modelling of local variograms produce reliable results (estimation and standard deviation), that enable the geostatistician to optimize the tunnel alignment and to define an optinun design of new surveys in sensitive areas. Some simpler case studies are also presented.