Information, uncertainty and decision making in site investigation for rock engineering

Although there is general awareness that uncertainty, information and decision making are key elements of site investigation, there has previously been little comprehensive attempt to formalize these factors in the site investigation process. In modern design, rock engineering is considered as a system and it is necessary to establish the key variables and interactions between the variables within the system as a precursor to design. Then, questions concerning (i) the information required to characterize the system, (ii) the uncertainty associated with this information, and (iii) the influence that this has on decision making, naturally arise and need to be addressed. We consider the application of information theory to geotechnical engineering through interpretation of informatic concepts in a rock mechanics context. Examples are then given, concentrating on the ideas of information received in sequential phases of site investigation, the information content of rock-mass classification systems, and the information content of scalar and vector quantities using discontinuity frequency as an example. In the concluding section, there are recommendations for making improvements to site investigation using information theory.