Arabian Journal of Geosciences (2022) 15: 1123

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-022-10396-9

REVIEW PAPER

Critical appraisal of the behavioral geo‑mechanisms of peats/organic

soils
Romana Mariyam Rasheed1,2   · Arif Ali Baig Moghal1 

Received: 22 April 2022 / Accepted: 26 May 2022 / Published online: 4 June 2022
© Saudi Society for Geosciences 2022

Abstract
One of the most challenging natural foundation materials available on Earth which endanger any construction activity is
‘highly compressible peat’ or ‘organic soils’ containing a considerable amount of organic matter derived from plant remains.
Such soils possess poor engineering characteristics like high water content (> 100%), high compressibility in terms of second-
ary and tertiary compression with Cα/Cc in the range of 0.02–0.08, low shear strength with an undrained strength in the range
of 5–25 kPa, high permeability around 6 × ­10−6 m/s, low unit weight, high spatial variability, and are subjected to further
decomposition based on the surrounding environmental conditions. Therefore, appropriate treatment is needed to transform
these soils into suitable foundation materials due to their highly unpredictable engineering properties. Various attempts
such as preloading, dynamic replacement and mixing, and electroosmosis, employed in the past for stabilizing these soils
have resulted in their increased stiffness and strength. On the other hand, techniques such as chemical stabilization utilizing
cement, lime, and flyash, and bio-stabilization in the form of calcite precipitation and biopolymers are found to improve the
shear strength and decrease the compressibility characteristics by more than 50%. The current review article provides better
insights into understanding the complex behavior of globally occurring organic soils relying on their compressibility, shear
strength, and permeability characteristics and highlights the various type of stabilization techniques employed, the improve-
ment mechanisms involved, the microscopic and mineralogical studies, the mixing methodologies adopted, and even a few
case studies concerning the implementation of various techniques on organic soils.

Keywords  Organic soils · Peat · Shear strength · Compressibility · Stabilization methods · Practical challenges

Introduction high compressibility, including secondary and tertiary set-

The choice of a particular type of soil as a foundation mate-
rial determines the strength and stability of the superstruc-
ture. Therefore, before any soil is considered part of the
design, it is imperative to thoroughly understand all soil
types’ geotechnical characteristics. For instance, soil with
Responsible Editor: Zeynal Abiddin Erguler
* Arif Ali Baig Moghal
reach2arif@gmail.com; baig@nitw.ac.in
Romana Mariyam Rasheed
romanamrasheed@tkmce.ac.in;
rm712020@student.nitw.ac.in
1
Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute
of Technology Warangal, Warangal 506004, India
2
Department of Civil Engineering, TKM College
of Engineering, Kollam 691005, India
tlements, high water content, insufficient shear strength,
and high permeability, is generally unsuitable for founda-
tion material. These soils must be avoided for construction
purposes at all costs as they contain high organic content in
the form of plant remains and generally possess such poor
engineering properties. The degree of decomposition and the
presence of fibers also contribute to the peculiar characteris-
tics exhibited by these soils. Humus is the chemically active
colloidal form of organic matter. In comparison, “peat” is
defined as the unconsolidated shallow deposits with high
non-crystalline colloid (humus) content and existing in
abundance in waterlogged, undrained areas such as wetlands
(Huat et al. 2014).
However, the development in the construction sector and
rapid urbanization have prompted geotechnical engineers
to undertake more work in such soils owing to the non-
availability of suitable lands. Therefore, it is imperative for
soils with high compressibility to predict their long-term

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1123 Page 2 of 26
secondary settlement to understand the settlement of struc-
tures supported on organic soils. The fiber content present
in these soils largely influences their shear strength and
compressibility characteristics. Analysis of long-term com-
pression on peat showed a linear dependency of compres-
sion with the logarithm of time, followed by an increase in
secondary compression, subsequently paving the way for
tertiary compression for a particular load. Also, the overall
shape of the compression curve can be represented accu-
rately by a rheological model (Edil and Dhowian 1979; Lo
1961).
Another concept (Mesri and Castro 1987) developed
the Cα/Cc, which is the ratio of secondary compression to
primary compression, which proved to be appropriate in
predicting the secondary compression of clays. The value
of Cα/Cc and the termination of the primary consolidation
curve ultimately defined the secondary compression behav-
ior of clays. Value in the range of 0.02–0.1 was obtained
when the concept of Cα/Cc was later extended to peats. How-
ever, it was observed by (Edil and Dhowian 1979) that the
value of Cα/Cc gets affected by the sample disturbance, and
therefore sampling should be done with extreme care.
Fig. 1  Global distribution of
peatlands
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
Evaluation of shear strength is essential in the design
of embankments and other structures. For organic soil, the
strength is influenced by the amount of organic matter, water
content, and the amount of fibers present in the soil. These
soils have been shown to exhibit low values of undrained
shear strength (qu) in the range of 5–25 kPa (Asadi et al.
2010; Ali et al. 2010), whereas some high values in the range
of 20–100 kPa for some organic soils (Cola and Cortellazzo
2005). In addition, due to the presence of fibers acting as an
internal reinforcement along the failure plane in these soils,
they have exhibited higher values of angle of internal fric-
tion in the range of 27°–52° and relatively smaller values of
cohesion (Yamaguchi et al. 1985; Landva and La Rochelle
1983).
Considering the area covered globally by peatlands which
are about 2.84% of the total land area available on Earth,
avoidance of such highly compressible deposits is no longer
an option (Xu et al. 2018), and the global distribution of
these soils is presented in Fig. 1. These soils must be handled
with much care and attention and require appropriate engi-
neering judgments while constructing these deposits. Due
to the lack of knowledge in implementing an appropriate
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
construction technique on organic soils and poor site inves-
tigations conducted in certain regions, several researchers
have reported many failures (Gould et al. 2002).
These deposits are also significant contributors to green-
house gas (GHG) emissions in the event of any construc-
tion-induced disturbance and drainage, which leads to the
release of C­ O2 into the atmosphere and hampers the peat's
ability to sequester carbon. Furthermore, when these soils
are exploited for agricultural purposes or urban develop-
ment, they transform from a carbon sink to a carbon source
(D’Acunha et al. 2019; Duggan et al. 2019; Nayak et al.
2008). This highlights the importance of a suitable construc-
tion technique while dealing with these deposits.
A conventional method of treating soft soils in the past
includes the implementation of surcharge loading, prefabri-
cated vertical drain, and electroosmotic treatment to quicken
the rate of consolidation (Sinha et al. 2009). However, this
method will not be that useful in the case of soils with high
organic matter as the time required for secondary and ter-
tiary settlements will be pretty high compared to that of
clayey soils. Therefore, methods such as dynamic replace-
ment and mixing have been adopted to create a stiffer dual
layer of soil deposit comprising peat and sand, which con-
siderably minimizes secondary settlement (Lo et al. 1990;
Stinnette et al. 1997).
The application of chemical stabilizers in organic soils
such as cement, flyash, and lime has shown tremendous
improvement in mechanical properties such as shear strength
and compressibility (Arman and Munfakh 1972; Chen
and Wang 2006; Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021). However,
strength improvement was diminished by the presence of
organic matter in cement-treated organic soils. Additionally,
the manufacturing method adopted for Portland cement is
associated with a large amount of energy depletion, dust
generation, and non-renewable and C ­ O2 emissions, which
leads to climate change and global warming.
Thus, a need arises to replace cement with other addi-
tives such as ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS),
rice husk ash (RHA), and sodium silicate, which have also
contributed to improvement in the engineering properties of
these deposits (Kalantari et al. 2013; Paul and Hussain 2020;
Tastan et al. 2011). Figure 2 depicts the timeline showing the
historical development of research in organic soil.
Due to the increasing demand for sustainable, cost-effec-
tive, and environment-friendly materials for stabilization,
alternative materials have been explored and applied to sta-
bilize organic soils. Bio-inspired geotechnics is an emerg-
ing field in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering
which utilizes natural or biological strategies in engineering
applications by implementing a technique analogous to the
biological process.
The successful implementation of bio-inspired techniques
requires collaboration between engineers, practitioners, and
Page 3 of 26 1123
researchers (Martinez et al. 2021). One such technique inspired
by the natural cementation in soils is the microbially induced
calcite precipitation (MICP) and enzymatically induced calcite
precipitation (EICP). In addition, biocementation by the uti-
lization of the capability of indigenous bacteria to precipitate
minerals in soils has been shown to reduce the compressibility
characteristics of organic soils (Safdar et al. 2021a).
However, owing to the difficulty in maintaining con-
trolled environmental conditions for the growth of bacteria,
another technique termed EICP came into practice in which
free urease enzyme catalyzed the urea hydrolysis and sub-
sequently resulted in the calcite precipitation within the soil
pores. Studies conducted by implementing soy-bean as the
biocatalyst has shown significant improvement in the shear
strength of soils by around 50% (Putra et al. 2021). Applying
an environment-friendly biopolymer obtained from micro-
bial sources such as xanthan gum has shown its effective-
ness in organic soils, which improved peat characteristics
by forming a xanthan gum matrix between the clay parti-
cles and Gum. The optimum content of just 2% of xanthan
gum improved the compressive strength from 13 to 83 kPa
within 28 days of curing. Such gums will degrade after the
end of their service period and do not cause any harm to the
environment (Latifi et al. 2016; Moghal and Vydehi 2021).
This review article highlights the compressibility, shear
strength, and permeability characteristics of the natural
organic soils and peat. It discusses the various types of sta-
bilization works and mixing strategies employed in these
highly problematic soils. The various case studies detailing
the issues of buildings constructed on organic soils and rec-
tification works are also highlighted.
Classification of organic soils
Organic soils consist of the carbonaceous and combustible
organic components and the incombustible, ash-forming
mineral component (MacFarlane 1969). A biochemical
process is responsible for the formation of organic mate-
rials. When they accumulate due to environmental condi-
tions, peat is formed by overcoming the rate of humification
or decomposition (Andriesse 1974). The properties of the
globally occurring organic soils differ and are presented in
Table 1 and Table 2 presents the different classification sys-
tems generally adopted for these soils.
Effect of organic content and fiber content
on the engineering properties
Compressibility
Distresses such as localized sinking and slip failure and a
significant amount of primary compression followed by
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1123 Page 4 of 26 Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123

Fig. 2  Timeline showing the

historical development of MacFarlane and Radforth 1965
research in organic soils Berry and Vickers 1975
Studied compression of peat
Assessed consolidation of fibrous
peat
Asaoka 1978
Applied observational procedure
for settlement prediction in Edil and Dhowian 1979
cohesive soils
Predicted long term compression
of peat
Landva and La Rochelle 1983
Studied compressibility & shear
characteristics of peats Edil et al. 1991
Applied observational procedure
Mesri and Castro 1987 for predicting settlement in peat
Applied the concept of Cα/Cc for
fibrous peats
Stinnette et al. 1997
Performed Dynamic
Edil and Wang 2000 Replacement for organic soils
Studied shear strength and Ko of
peats and organic soils
Huat et al. 2005
Stabilized tropical peat with
Kazemian and Huat 2009
chemical admixtures
Evaluated compressibility
characteristics of fibrous peat with
cement columns
Pichan and Kelly 2012
Studied the effect of
Canakci et al. 2015 decomposition of fibers in peat
Studied compressibility and shear
strength by MICP on organic soils
Tubiello et al. 2016
Assessed GHG emissions from
Lechowicz et al. 2018 drained organic soils
Evaluated undrained shear strength
of organic soils by Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) Latifi et al. 2016
Stabilized organic soil with
Paul and Hussain 2020 Xanthan Gum

Stabilized Indian Peat with cement

Putra et al. 2021
Stabilized organic soils by calcite
precipitation using soybean

secondary and tertiary compressions occur when peat or the water table will expose these soils to further oxidation and
organic soils are subjected to an increase in load (Carling shrinkage, thereby increasing the permeability and compress-
1986). The humification or decomposition of the organic con- ibility (Huat et al. 2014).
stituents affects the engineering properties, and any changes in

13
 Table 1  Properties of different types of organic soils
Location OC (%) FC (%) AC (%) NWC (%) wl (%) wp (%) pH G qu (kPa) C Reference(s)

Kuttanad 14 – – 125 137 80 4.6 2.5 8 OH (USCS) Suganya and Sivapullaiah 2020
Kerala, India
Wisconsin, USA – 20 40 240 – – 6.2 1.9 27 Amorphous granular peat Edil and Dhowian 1979
– 31–64 12–20 460–600 – – 6.2–7.3 1.4–1.7 14–22 Fibrous peat
Bishan Depot, Singapore 20 – – 161 155 92 – 2.2 10 Peaty clay Lo et al. 1990
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123

West Johore, Malaysia 80 60 – 150 – – 5.3 1.4 13 H3 Latifi et al. 2016

Klang, Malaysia 95 – – 480 263 – 5.6 – 15 Fibric H3 Asadi et al. 2010
Selangor Malaysia 85 – – 260 160 – 6.5 – 6.5 Amorphous H7
Sarawak 49 – – 87 245 155 – – – OH (USCS) Kaniraj and Yee 2011
Malaysia
Mardi, Malaysia 57 41.9 – 158 155 – 5.6 – 6.5 Organic soil Moayedi et al. 2012
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 76 42 – 161 – – 5.6 1.3 – Peat Moayedi et al. 2014
Turkey 14 – – – 65 47 – 2.2 – OH (USCS) Cabalar and Alosman 2021
Wabasca, Canada 26 23 74 260 104 84 7.2 2.2 – Sapric, high AC Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021
Markey peat, Wisconsin, USA 27 – – 57 53 – 6.3 2.2 15 Peat (USCS) Sauer et al. 2012
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 26 – – 54.01 69.3 – 6.5 2.1 28.4 Organic soil Kazemian et al. 2012
46 – – 119.2 134 – 5.8 1.8 19.1 Organic soil
83 – – 119 172 – 5.8 1.4 10.5 Organic soil
Malaysia 76–77 65–68 266–286 285–310 – – – 1.5 – H5 Duraisamy et al. 2009
84–88 75–77 35–330 350–398 – – – 1.4 – H4
73 55 181 250 – – – 1.5 – H7
75 58 241 275 – – – 1.5 – H6
70–80 31–32 140–300 240–330 – – – 1.5 – H8
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia 90 – 3.6 668.3 – – 3.5 1.4 4.54 H4 Ali et al. 2010
Sarawak 92 – – 552 413 257 – 1.5 – H8 Kaniraj et al. 2010
Malaysia
NE Province of India 20 8.1 – 268 69 55 5.1 2.0 – H8-H10 Paul and Hussain 2020
36 77 – 600 68 59 5.5 1.9 – H1-H4
66 37 – 590 97 – 6.4 1.4 – H5-H7
76 44 – 404 72 66 4.5 1.5 – H5-H7
Turkey 50–70 – 40 256 125 NP 4.5–6.5 1.9 12 Peat (USCS) Celik and Canakci 2014
Brazil 50 – – 500–600 536–540 200–240 3.4 1.9 6 H8 Lemos et al. 2020
Sakarya, Turkey 23 – – 97 75 45 6.7 2.2 – H7–H10 Hamed et al. 2021
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 94 79 – 506.5 – – 3.8 1.3 – H3 Huat et al. 2011
81 53 – 324.6 – – 4.8 1.3 – H6
75 31 – 188.2 – – 5.9 1.4 – H9

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Page 5 of 26 1123
 Table 1  (continued)
Location OC (%) FC (%) AC (%) NWC (%) wl (%) wp (%) pH G qu (kPa) C Reference(s)

13
Western part of Malaysia 80 – – 198–417 160 NP 6.8 – – H1–H4 Kalantari et al. 2013
Malaysia 91 80 – 495 260 NP 4.1 1.4 – H3 Dehghanbanadaki et al. 2017
1123 Page 6 of 26

Sarawak 94–96 50–60 4–6 700–800 – – 4.9 1.2 – H3–H5 Phang et al. 2019
Malaysia
NW Poland 15–85 – – 100–450 – – – 1.4–2.2 – Peat Lechowicz et al. 2018
SE Poland 21–35 – – 130–220 – – – 2.1–2.3 – Calcareous organic
Shiromoni, Bangladesh 37 – – – 85.2 62.5 6.37 2.2 – Nath et al. 2017
Teluk Intan Peat, Malaysia 81 80 19 224.2 64.4 – 4.0 1.9 42.9 H3 Ahmad et al. 2021

OC = organic content, FC = fiber content, AC = ash content, NWC = natural water content, wl = liquid limit, wp = plastic limit, G = specific gravity, qu = undrained shear strength, NP = non plastic,
C soil classification, NW North Western, SE South Eastern

Table 2  Classification systems
Classification system Criteria Usefulness Reference (s)

Unified Soil Classification System Loss on Ignition Method based on AASHTO T 267–86: Engineering purposes AASHTO T 267–86 (2013)
2013
Von Post Scale Fibric or fibrous peats (H1-H3), hemic or moderately Field classification (Huang et al. 2009; Landva and Pheeney 1980; Zulkifley
decomposed peat (H4-H6), and sapric or amorphous et al. 2013)
peats (H7–H10)
Depends on the depth of the sample, fiber content,
moisture content, and the presence of woody rem-
nants
The Alaska Guide for Description and Classifica- Fibric peat of fibrous peat, hemic peat, and sapric peat – Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facili-
tion of Peat and Organic Soils, 2007 or amorphous peat with fiber contents > 67% (H1– ties 2007; Stanek and Silc 1977)
H3), 33–67% (H4–H6), and < 33% (H7–H10)
The Malaysian Soil Classification System (BS5930) Slightly organic soils (OC of 3–20%), organic soils (OC Engineering purposes Zulkifley et al. 2013
of 20–75%), and peats with OC > 75% and field identifica-
tion
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123 Page 7 of 26 1123

• Amorphous granular peat contains soil particles of col-
loidal size in which a significant amount of the porewater
is adsorbed around the grain structure.
• Whereas, fibrous peats are soil samples with an open
structure with interstices consisting of a secondary struc-
tural arrangement of nonwoody, fine fibrous material
with high initial permeability. Free water is present in
enormous amounts rather than in the form of viscous
adsorbed water (Macfarlane and Radforth 1965).
Long-term compressibility of peat (Edil and Dhowian
1979) was assessed using 1D consolidation tests to evaluate
the strain–time behavior of one amorphous and three fibrous
peat samples collected from four different locations within
1 m depth using a 76 mm Shelby Tube. It has been reported
that fibrous peats exhibit the highest value for (Cα/Cc), in the
range of 0.05–0.07 (Mesri and Ajlouni 2007). Table 3 dis-
plays the values of Cα/Cc obtained for different organic soils.
The behavior of peat under incremental loading for a
period of 20 days indicated a significant structural change
that occurred at some value of strain for each particular load
increment. However, the soil behavior was modified with
secondary and tertiary components merging on the applica-
tion of further load increments, which indicated the influ-
ence of stress history on structural change. A rheological
model suggested by (Lo 1961) was applied to peats, and the
results of strain obtained from the model concurred with the
experimental results. Due to the challenge in predicting the
compression characteristics of organic soils and peats, an
“observational procedure” was developed by (Asaoka 1978)
in which the early compression data obtained from the field
is used to predict the boundary of primary consolidation
and the coefficient of consolidation in the field. This method
gained acceptance as it quickly replaced the laborious pro-
cedure of soil sampling and testing or the need to meas-
ure pore water pressure in the field. Bilinear trends were
obtained for test fills constructed over fibrous peat deposits,
and amorphous granular peat deposits, suggesting the non-
applicability of this method on peats.
The Cα/Cc concept of compressibility has been proved
to be a valid parameter (Edil et al. 1991a, 1991b) in pre-
dicting the secondary compression behavior of soil deposits
by applying surcharge and without it. For any soil deposit,
the ratio of Cα/Cc is assumed to be constant for any time,
effective stress, and void ratio during secondary compres-
sion, and for most of the peculiar soil deposits such as Leda
Clay, Mexico City Clay, and Chicago blue clay, this linear
dependency between Cα upon Cc has been proved (Mesri
1973; Mesri and Godlewski 1977; Mesri et al. 1975; San-
tagata et al. 2008; Walker and Raymond 1968). This con-
cept was further extended to evaluate the compressibility of
Middleton peat with OC of 93% and NWC of 550%, and an
in situ void ratio of 10.5 (Fox et al. 1992). It was difficult
to define a clear point for the end of primary consolidation
for Middleton peat from the graph. The non-inclusion of
tertiary compression points increased the linearity between
Cα and Cc. Also, it was observed that with a decrease in void
ratio, Cα/Cc increased. The trend obtained for the soil sample
between Cα and Cc under constant loading differed from
the linear relationship noticed under incremental loading. It
indicated that load increment ratio and sample disturbance
are contributing factors to Cα/Cc. The sample obtained from

Table 3  Value of Cα/Cc Type of soil NWC (%) OC (%) Cα/Cc Reference

obtained for different organic
soils Fibrous peat 613–886 – 0.06–0.085 Berry and Vickers 1975
Organic soils – – 0.05 Mesri and Godlewski 1977
Amorphous to fibrous peat 600 – 0.042–0.083 Edil and Dhowian 1981
High organic soils – – 0.02–0.04 Hobbs 1986
Sabkha soil*1 24–49 3–9 0.037 Al-Shamrani and Dhowian 1996
Fibrous peat 610–850 – 0.052 Karunawardena 2007
Italian peat – – 0.06–0.1 Cola and Cortellazzo 2005
Organic soil and peat 160–550 70–92 0.028–0.051 Sobhan et al. 2007
Organic sapric soil – 40–60 0.095 Santagata et al. 2008
Fibrous peat*2 – – 0.035–0.1 Pichan and O'Kelly 2012
Peat 533 92.69 0.056 Kamaruidzaman et al. 2019
Amorphous peat 378–620 92–96 0.044–0.056 Amuda et al. 2019
Indian peat 404–590 66–76 0.015–0.02 Paul and Hussain 2020
Kunming peat 158.2 49.4 0.052 Li et al. 2021

*.1Sabkha soils are coastal and inland saline deposits of arid climates rich in organic matter and are highly
compressible. They consist of loosely cemented sandy silt to silty clay particles
*2
  Lower limit corresponds to amorphous peat. The higher the decomposition of peat, the lower will be its
compressibility

13
1123 Page 8 of 26
block sampling gave a better correlation than the Shelby
tube samples.
It was also observed that the effective vertical stress and
temperature influence peat's secondary compression (Fox
and Edil 1996). Secondary consolidation gets reduced under
low temperatures by creating an over consolidated condition.
For tropical peats, the compression index, Cc increased with
the liquid limit (Huat 2006). Therefore, values of Cc of the
tropical peat samples were higher compared to the values
determined using the relationships (Hobbs 1986; Skempton
and Petlev 1970) given by Eq. (1) and Eq. (2).
Cc = 0.009 × (wl − 10) (1)
Cc = 0.007 × (wl − 10) (2)
where, ‘Cc’ = compression index and ‘wl’ = liquid limit of
the soil. The value of Cc for tropical peat ranged between 1
and 3. Azzouz et al. (1976) gave a relationship in the form
of Eq. (3).
Cc = 0.0115 × w (3)
where ‘w’ is the natural water content of the soil, and the
range of ‘Cc’ was reported as 2–9. The increment in the void
ratio of the samples occurred with a rise in liquid limit and
natural water content. The range of void ratio for amorphous
peat was 1.5–6 and for fibrous peat was high as 25. The
primary and secondary compression behavior of an organic
soil with organic matter > 20% was studied under different
water contents such as optimum water content (OMC), liq-
uid limit (LL), and an intermediate water content selected
between OMC and LL (MC) (Hamed et al. 2021). For all
three water contents adopted, the void ratio decreased with
increased stress with a more pronounced dip in the void ratio
at higher water contents.
Parameters such as void ratio, flow channel dimensions,
and shape affect the permeability of all soil types (Mesri and
Ajlouni 2007). With stress gain, the molding water content
exhibited a negligible effect on the coefficient of secondary
consolidation. However, organic soil molded at OMC gave
a value of Cα as 0.00442 and 0.01813 at MC at a stress of
50 kPa. These observed values were lower than the aver-
age range of Cα of 0.02–0.04 for highly organic soil (Hobbs
1986) and 0.05, as reported by (Mesri and Godlewski 1977)
in Table 3. An essential parameter in determining site behav-
ior in earthquake-prone regions containing peat is the cyclic
behavior of organic soils (Lemnitzer et al. 2021). Three stiff
embankment structures were constructed on compressible
peat deposits with OC of 69%, and they were subjected to
centrifuge tests. Accelerometers installed within the cen-
trifuge model measured the strains induced by the seismic
waves. The subsequent ground motion was applied after the
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
pore water pressure generated during shaking reached values
similar to the pre-seismic condition.
The settlements obtained after the seismic shaking were
correlated with one-dimensional numerical analysis using
the iConsol software. This software had the flexibility of
either considering or disregarding the secondary compres-
sion and the reset of secondary compression due to this
cyclic loading. Among all combinations, a median error
of only 15% between measured and predicted values were
obtained by the concurrence of primary compression and
secondary compression and the inclusion of the secondary
reset mechanism.
Shear strength
The two mechanical properties which serve as essential
parameters in the design of embankments and other struc-
tures over soft soils are the coefficient of earth pressure at
rest (Ko) and shear strength. Different soil samples consist-
ing of amorphous peat, fibrous peat, and organic soils were
collected to study Ko, which represents the one-dimensional
coefficient of lateral earth pressure under confined condi-
tions in which no lateral strain is permitted (Edil and Dhow-
ian 1981). The presence of fibers in organic soils induces an
anisotropy and internal reinforcement for the soil. A semi-
rigid confining tube attached with strain measuring devices
at three levels mounted outside the tube served as the Ko test
tube. This tube could sustain consolidation induced greater
vertical strains for a considerable range of vertical stresses
up to 800 kPa.
However, it possessed certain limitations, such as con-
siderably high friction on the sides of the tube and lateral
deformation. It was found that Ko for amorphous peat (0.53)
was higher than that for fibrous peat (0.34) at low vertical
stresses during the loading phase. Equation (4) proposed a
relationship for obtaining the Ko during unloading.
Ko(rb) = Ko(nc) × OCR∝ (4)
where Ko(rb) represents the earth pressure coefficient during
rebound, Ko(nc) is the earth pressure coefficient in the nor-
mally consolidated state, and α is an empirical coefficient
that ranges from 0.09 to 0.18.
The effective shear strength parameters derived from
consolidated undrained triaxial tests did not indicate any
dependency of the effective angle of internal friction on
organic content (Edil and Wang 2000). The average effective
angle of internal friction for peat was reported as 53° and
above 41° for organic soils, which were higher than those for
inorganic soils. Nevertheless, it was difficult to quantify the
contribution of the pore pressure measured. A relationship
between organic content and normalized undrained strength
could not be derived for the soils studied.
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123 Page 9 of 26 1123

Since it is difficult to determine the qu of shallow, satu- was defined either by the rupture of reinforcement or slip-
rated, and overconsolidated peat, attempts were made to cor- page between soil and reinforcement. The ratio of Cα/Cc was
relate shear wave velocity (Vs) with qu considering the fact found to be in the range of 0.06–0.1. The disruption of the
that both are dependent on water content (w), stress history, fiber caused a decrease by 14° and 23°. It was recommended
and current stress state of the soil (Trafford and Long 2020). to follow engineering judgment while encountering these
It was observed that a strong correlation existed between soils due to some hindrances in assessing a failure model
qu and normalized Vs i.e., Vs/w. However, further research for designing structures and the influence of test type and
needs to be conducted to verify the correlation for more applied stress path on shear strength.
humidified peat. Table 4 shows the effective angle of internal The undrained shear strength can also be determined
friction obtained for different organic soils and peat. from dilatometer tests based on empirical formulae. How-
Tests for assessing qu of Malaysia’s tropical peats and ever, relying on empirical relationships is always not ideal
organic soils through the direct shear test apparatus revealed due to the difference in geotechnical conditions in differ-
that the cohesion of soils was in the range of 6 to 17 kPa, ent regions. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were imple-
whereas the angle of internal friction fell in the range of 3° mented by (Lechowicz et al. 2018) for the assessment of
to 20° as indicated in Table 4 (Landva and Pheeney 1980). qu of peat (amorphous and pseudo-fibrous), calcareous soil
With an increase in the degree of humification, it was found called “gyttja” (calcareous and calcareous-organic), mud,
that the angle of internal friction and qu obtained from lab and organic mud. The analysis using ANN was based on five
and field also reduced (Huat 2006). independent variables, corrected first pressure reading, the
In association with the European Research program, normalized net value of a corrected second pressure reading,
an undrained triaxial study was performed on a normally the organic content, the void ratio ‘e’, and the stress history
consolidated and over consolidated Italian peat with OC of indicator.
72% and FC of 25% to evaluate the influence of fibers on The qu obtained from the field vane test (FVT) was com-
the frictional component of soil and also the stress–strain pared with the measurements from dilatometer tests by
behavior (Asadi et al. 2010). Several researchers have previ- conducting the test at the same depth where FVT was car-
ously explored the frictional component of peats and found ried out. qu was then determined using the empirical cor-
it to be in the range of 27°–52° (Landva and La Rochelle relations (Marchetti 1986; Roque et al. 1988; Smith and
1983; Yamaguchi et al. 1985). For the current study, a bilin- Houlsby 1995), and a multi-factor relationship proposed by
ear failure criterion was considered where the fibers in the (Rabarijoely 2000). On comparing the relative errors (RE)
peat acted as the tensile reinforcement. Failure condition obtained, it was observed that the empirical correlation
given by (Rabarijoely 2000) which was evaluated based on
the void ratio exhibited much smaller max RE values of the
Table 4  Effective cohesion and effective angle of internal friction for qu for peat at 0.9–13.4% and for gyttja at 7.2–12.1% and
different normally consolidated organic soils and peat tested under
CU condition provided better accuracy.
A laboratory model for evaluating the ultimate bearing
Soil c’ (kPa) Ø’ Reference capacity of footing resting on organic soil was conducted
Muskeg 14 50o Adams 1961 on the surface of organic soils by nullifying the effects of
Muskeg 0 48o Adams 1965 sample disturbance to conduct the experiments in field con-
Muskeg 5 46o Ozden and Wilson 1970 ditions (Kaya and Erol 2021). The index and engineering
Muck 0 51.9o Tsushima et al. 1977 properties of the sample determined through laboratory tests
Muck 1 78.3o Oikawa and Miyakawa were considered the input parameters for empirical equations
1980 and finite element analysis. Physical models with acceptable
Radforth peat – 27°–32.5o Landva and La Rochelle dimensions can be considered an alternative to determining
1983 mechanical behavior under loading (Yenes et al. 2012). Vari-
Ohmiya peat – 51°–55o Yamaguchi et al. 1985 ous methods such as the tangent intersect method, log–log
Fibrous peat – 53o Edil and Wang 2000 method, hyperbolic method, and 0.1B method were used for
Organic soil – 41o determining the ultimate bearing capacity of shallow foun-
Adria peat – 51o Cola and Cortellazzo dation based on stress and settlement.
Cortezzola peat – 49o 2005
The observation of the peak in the load settlement curve
Malaysian peat 6–17 3°–20o Huat 2006 or when the settlement surpassed 50 mm, the model experi-
Middleton Peat – 40°–60o Mesri and Ajlouni 2007 ments were discontinued. Bearing capacity was also evalu-
Sarawak hemic peat 8–18 24°–37o Sa’don et al. 2016 ated using analytical methods (Terzaghi, Meyerhof, Hansen,
CU consolidated undrained condition, c’ effective cohesion, Ø’ effec- and Skempton) and the 2D finite element method (FEM)
tive angle of internal friction analysis (PLAXIS 2D). The hyperbolic method gave a value

13
1123 Page 10 of 26
3.6 times higher compared to other methods even though the
model-bearing capacity values concurred with each method.
The most suitable analytical method was found to be the one
proposed by Skempton for organic soil. Even though the
results obtained from PLAXIS 2D were 7.8% lesser than
the mean value obtained from model studies, the PLAXIS
program was considered to provide a reliable estimation of
the bearing capacity of organic soils.
Permeability
Permeability is an important engineering characteristic
that controls the hydraulic stability of any structure and it
is found to be quite high in the case of organic soils. The
permeability of these fine-grained soils is controlled by the
pores present in the microfabric and mini fabric of soils.
Due to the high permeability exhibited by organic soils in
the range of 6 × ­10−6 m/s and with an initial void ratio in
the range of 5 to 15, they need to be utilized in various field
applications such as the construction of roads and embank-
ments with caution.
It was observed by (MacFarlane 1969) that a discernible
linear relationship between water content and the void ratio
of the soil. Additionally, the void ratio is affected by the
structure and orientation of fibers present and subsequently
influences the engineering properties of the soil such as per-
meability, shear strength, and compressibility. Attempts have
been made to reduce the permeability of these soils by the
use of various stabilizers and filler materials essentially to
reduce the void ratio of the fabric (Ali et al. 2010; Wong
et al. 2008).
Stabilization techniques
Dynamic Replacement and Mixing (DRM) was employed in
organic soils and carried out in two stages by (Lo et al. 1990;
Stinnette et al. 1997). The procedure consisted of forming
sand columns in the highly compressible deposits by means
of low-intensity tamping with sand charges, followed by
high energy tamping which causes the release of jets of sand
from the in-stalled sand columns to create a stiffer dual-layer
composite soil system with relatively insignificant creep
characteristics. Finite element modeling of DR on organic
soils considered the modified clam-clay model for organic
soil and the elliptical cap model for sand (Thilakasiri et al.
2001). The geometric nonlinearity was also considered in
the stress incremental process. This analytical tool proved to
be useful in cases where it is imperative to assess the viabil-
ity of the DR method or it is highly inconvenient to conduct
pilot DR studies due to variable site geology.
Later on, these techniques were replaced by other suit-
able materials such as the addition of chemical additives
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
or bio-materials which transformed the soil into a suitable
foundation or construction material by which the mechani-
cal properties of the soil can be improved. The following
discussion highlights some of the stabilization techniques
which have been adopted for the stabilization of organic soils
and peats.
Chemical stabilization
The treatment of soft soils with chemical additives is a well-
established research area and the chemical reactions between
soil and the chemical additives such as lime, cement, or
flyash modify the physical and mechanical properties of
the soil (Federico et al. 2015; Moghal 2017; Suganya and
Sivapullaiah 2016; Quang and Chai 2015).
Using lime and cement
Tropical peat soil with OC in the range of 75% to 94% exhib-
ited a decrease in the liquid limit with an increase in curing
up to 7 days as the reaction between cement or lime with
soil is time-dependent (Huat et al. 2005). UCS increased by
250% with an increase in curing days and the highest was
reported for 28 days for 10% cement and it increased by
130–150% for 10% lime. However, as the degree of humi-
fication increased, the rate of increase of strength declined.
Thus, cement proved to be a better additive for the treatment
of tropical peats. Figure 3 shows the mechanism of cement
stabilization in organic soil.
Clay mineralogy plays a significant role in the strength
attainment of organic clays (Saride et al. (2013). It was
found that the strength reduced at higher organic content, as
a part of the calcium present in the stabilizer reacted with
humic acid present in the soil. The study highlighted that
organic content and plasticity influenced the soil–lime reac-
tion in expansive organic clays. Stabilizers such as calcium
hydroxide (Ca(OH)2), calcium carbonate (­CaCO3), and
calcium chloride (­ CaCl2) on expansive clays revealed that
Ca(OH)2 treatment exhibited the lowest reduction in final
void ratio followed by ­CaCl2 and Ca(OH)2 (Moghal et al.
2020b). Additionally, the highest value of unconfined com-
pressive strength was also observed in the case of Ca(OH)2-
treated soil in comparison to the other two stabilizers. This
improvement in 4 and unconfined compressive strength
of organic soils with an increase in lime content has been
reported by other researchers (Arman and Munfakh 1972;
Sakr et al. 2009).
There was a need to evaluate the effect of organic matter
on cement stabilization of soils and to modify the proper-
ties of the soil–cement mixtures, certain admixtures were
chosen to serve as accelerators for cement hydroxylation
and hydration for stabilizing mucky soil in China (Chen and
Wang 2006). Mixtures of sodium sulfate, sodium chloride,
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
Fig. 3  a Soil structure before Micropore
cement stabilization in organic
soil, and b soil structure after
cement stabilization in organic
soil
Macropores
(a)
and triethanolamine were used in proportions of 2, 0.5, and
0.05% as accelerator admixtures. The humic acid present in
organic matter interacts with calcium ions and hinders cal-
cium crystallization which is responsible for strength gain.
Hence, about 2.55% of crystal calcium sulfate was chosen as
the second admixture. Aluminum sulfate was chosen as the
last admixture since Fulvic acid tends to decompose crystals
such as calcium aluminate hydrate, calcium sulfate-alumi-
nate hydrate, and calcium ferrite–aluminate hydrate.
Among the three admixtures employed, crystal calcium
sulfate produced a soil–cement mixture which gave the high-
est strength of 103 kPa as the loosely combined humus in
organic matter contains more humic acid. Hence it can be
recommended that cement stabilization for peat should be
carried out in the presence of other admixtures as well which
can outweigh the effects of organic matter (Ahmad et al.
2021; Paul and Hussain 2020; Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021).
Using cement columns
Deep soil mixing has been applied for the soft soil treatment
with either lime or cement columns and has exhibited good
performance (Arulrajah et al. 2018). Soil–cement columns
can push the potential failure surface deeper by improv-
ing the overall shear strength of the soil and subsequently
increasing the factor of safety in slope stability applications
(Andromalos et al. 2001). The study on fibrous peat evalu-
ated the effect of cement columns on the compressibility
of peat in Rowe Cell. Additionally, the effect of fiber con-
tent and organic content on the compressibility behavior of
fibrous peat was studied (Duraisamy et al. 2009).
Page 11 of 26 1123
Micropore
Cementitious products
(b)
Advantages of Rowe Cell include measurement of pore
water pressure and control drainage. It was reported that a
group of nine cement columns reduced the compressibility
by 90% compared to the 65% reduction attained by means
of 4 cement columns. Additionally, the greatest reduction
was observed at 100% cement content. The experimental
results obtained for the fibrous peat were in good agree-
ment with the correlation equation (Den Haan 1998) given
by Eq. (5). A correlation equation was derived for the plot
obtained and a very good correlation of R2 of 0.9956 was
obtained between specific gravity and organic content,
which is given by Eq. (6).
Gs = 1∕(0.362 × OC + 0.371) (5)
Gs = −0.00820 × OC + 2.1404 (6)
where, Gs-specific gravity of the peat, and OC- organic con-
tent of the peat. The correlation factor ­R2 between liquid
limit and organic content was 0.6178 and that between dry
density and natural water content is 0.7828. Therefore, fur-
ther studies were recommended to verify these correlations.
The ratio Cα/Cc was obtained as 0.02 and 0.027 from Rowe
Cell and conventional consolidometer tests respectively. Fur-
ther research needs to be undertaken to verify these values as
these are not in agreement with the value of peat in the range
of 0.05–0.07 (Mesri and Castro 1987; Mesri et al. 1997).
Sand columns installed in organic soil studied by varying
percentages of sand achieved the highest shear strength and
quicker rate of consolidation for the ratio of 70% peat to
30% sand (Jorat et al. 2013). Table 5 shows the improvement
in compressibility characteristics with chemical stabilizers.
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1123 Page 12 of 26 Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123

Table 5  Improvement in compressibility characteristics with chemical stabilizers

Soil type Stabilizer Untreated compressibility Treated compressibility (kPa) Reference
(kPa)
Cc Cα Cc Cα

Fibrous peat with Cement column with 1.878–3.627 0.0608–0.0985 0.3756–0.7254 0.0121–0.0197
OC = 70–88% and 100% cement for a
FC = 31–77% diameter of 80 mm
Cement column of 9 nos. 1.878–3.627 0.0608–0.0985 0.1878–0.3627 0.0061–0.0099 Duraisamy et al. 2009
with 100% cement
Curing period = 28 days
Fibrous peat with 1.69 0.073 1.12 0.045
OC = 94.23% Cement column with
90% cement
Hemic with OC = 81.3% Area ratio 13.45% 1.28 0.069 0.81 0.039
Sapric with OC = 75.31% 1.17 0.065 0.79 0.036
Fibrous peat with 1.69 0.073 1.04 0.04 Huat et al. 2011
OC = 94.23%
Hemic with OC = 81.3% Cement column with 1.28 0.069 0.74 0.035
90% cement
Area ratio 25%
Sapric with OC = 75.31% 1.17 0.065 0.56 0.029
Organic soil 30% cement + 5% silica 3.64 – 1.5 – Kalantari et al. 2013
fume
Fibrous peat with 400 kg/m3 cement 0.002 Dehghanbanadaki et al.
OC = 91%, FC = 80% 160 kg/m3 flyash 3 – 0.04 2017
160 kg/m3 gypsum 0.16
400 kg/m3 lime 2.3
Peat with OC = 26%, 50% FA 2.03 0.14 0.6 0.02 Pokharel and Siddiqua
FC = 23% 2021
Indian peat
OC = 20% 15% cement 1.43 0.022 0.06 0.002 Paul and Hussain 2020
OC = 36% 2.99 0.049 0.08 0.003
OC = 66% 3.72 0.067 0.19 0.006
OC = 76% 3.49 0.069 0.18 0.007

A similar study was conducted on three different forms
of peat namely, sapric, hemic, and fibrous in the Rowe Cell
Apparatus to evaluate the effect of cement columns in peat
(Huat et al. 2011). The Cc value reduced with an increase in
cement content but the highest reduction was observed for
fibrous peat owing to the highest void ratio and bending and
higher compression permitted by the nature of fibers. For
all types of peats, Cα reduced with an increase in cement
content. The higher area ratio of cement columns also played
a crucial role in decreasing compressibility. The consolida-
tion characteristics obtained from Rowe Cell served as the
parameters for asymmetric analysis in PLAXIS using the
soft soil creep model for assessing the consolidation behav-
ior. A drained condition was assumed for the modeling ini-
tiated by parameters such as stiffness parameters, modified
swell index, modified compression index, and modified
creep index. It was observed that there was an increment
in the ultimate bearing capacity with an increase in cement
content and the highest value of failure load was obtained for
sapric peat compared to fibrous and hemic and the strength
increased from 51.33 kN to 96.14 kN. Figures 4 and 5 shows
the variation of Cc and Cα with different binder dosages.
Cement along with other stabilizers
To attain improved characteristics of peat using cement sta-
bilizers, it has been recommended to use it along with other
additives (Chen and Wang 2006) so that the reactions can
be accelerated and stabilization can be improved. Undis-
turbed Malaysian peat (fibrous peat) of classification H4
with an OC of 96.45% and FC of 90.39% was mixed with
Portland cement and ground granulated blast furnace slag
(GGBS) with siliceous sand as per the guidelines in Euro-
SoilStab (2002). Significant linear shrinkage was exhibited
by untreated peat in comparison to the treated peat due to the
drying of the coarser organic fraction in the soil (Tremblay

13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
Fig. 4  Variation of Cc with different binder dosages
Fig. 5  Variation of Cα with different binder dosages
et al. 2002). The UCS of the peat sample was improved from
4.54 kPa to 178.57 kPa for a binder dosage of 300 kg/m3. A
high amount of cement, slag, and siliceous sand had to be
added to the peat owing to the lesser number of solid parti-
cles available for stabilization.
Over a range of consolidation pressures from 12.5 ka
to 800 kPa, the coefficient of secondary compression and
tertiary compression fell in the range of 0.003–0.021
and 0.01–0.053. These ratios of secondary and tertiary
compression reduced to the range of 0.008–0.011 and
0.01–0.02 after stabilization. At a high consolidation pres-
sure of 800 kPa, the coefficient of vertical permeability
reduced from 2.341 × ­10−10 m/s to 3.039 × ­10−10 m/s upon
stabilization. The formation of primary and secondary
Page 13 of 26 1123
calcium silicate hydrates which block the soil pores during
the curing period can be considered to be the main factor
contributing to the reduced permeability (Ali et al. 2010).
Table 6 shows the improvement in unconfined compressive
strength (UCS) due to chemical stabilizers.
Malaysian organic soils with OC of 26%, 46.4%, and
83.31% were selected for stabilization using Ordinary
Portland cement, hydrous sodium silicate, and calcium
chloride anhydrous powder which served as a reactor
(Kazemian et al. 2012). When the amount of calcium chlo-
ride varied from 0 to 2%, vane shear strength increased by
18.7%, and moisture content decreased by 22.9% as the
net charge on the soil particles tend to 0. A reverse trend
was observed for shear strength and moisture content in
the range of 2–4% of calcium chloride owing to the dis-
turbance in charge balance due to the extra calcium cati-
ons. For all soil types, shear strength increased and water
content reduced from 0 to 30% cement and 0 to 3% of
sodium silicate. At higher contents of cement and sodium
silicate, a reverse trend was obtained for all soil types. The
pozzolanic reactions can be increased by the addition of
mineral soils in the grout as a filler and thereby improve
the shear strength of soils.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research, ICAR
has reported that about 2.17% of the total area in India
is covered by peatland out of the total peatland in Asia
as indicated in Fig. 1. A wealth of literature has reported
the successful improvement of mechanical properties of
peat using cement (Axelsson et al. 2002; Sherwood 1993;
Timoney and McCabe 2012). A first attempt of studying
the peatland of the North-Eastern province of India has
been done by Paul and Hussain (2020).
Samples collected from four different locations with OC
of 20%, 36%, 66%, and 76% were classified as H8–H10,
H1–H4, H5–H7, and H5–H7 and designated as NH39,
KTE, IBB, and NITM. GGBS and rice husk ash (RHA)
were selected as additives along with cement to evalu-
ate the replacement of cement with suitable proportions
as recommended by (Ali et  al. 2010; Chen and Wang
2006). At higher cement replacements of 50% and 70%,
MDD decreased and OMC increased owing to the diffi-
culty in achieving good compaction due to the absence
of coarser materials in contradiction to 30% replacement,
where MDD and OMC followed a reverse trend. The
UCS strength of soil samples decreased when cement was
replaced by GGBS and RHA compared to the strength
achieved for soil–cement mixture without due consid-
eration for the curing days and organic content. It was
also observed that a maximum of 30% of cement can be
replaced in less organic soils such as NH39 and KTE.
Compared to RHA, the performance of GGBS turned out
to be more beneficial for the stabilization of peats.
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1123 Page 14 of 26 Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123

Table 6  Improvement in UCS with chemical stabilizers

Soil type Stabilizer Untreated Treated UCS (kPa) Curing days Reference
UCS
(kPa)

Louisiana soil with OC = 22% 12% lime 77 125 28 Arman and Munfakh 1972
Tropical peat with OC = 79% Huat et al. 2005
10% lime 130 170 28
OC = 90% 130 190 28
OC = 94% 60 150 28
Clay with OC = 14% 7% lime 11 94 60 Sakr et al. 2009
Klang peat with OC = 96.45%, 75% cement + 25% 4.54 178.57 28 Ali et al. 2010
FC = 90.39% GGBS with siliceous
sand
Tropical peat with OC = 76%, 6% sodium silicate 15.7 39.9 30 Moayedi et al. 2014
FC = 41.94% 6% calcium oxide 15.7 75.7 30
4% aluminium hydroxide 15.7 37 30
6% calcium chloride 15.7 35 30
Fibrous peat with OC = 91%, FC = 80% 300 kg/m3 of cement 10 163.7 90 Dehghanbanadaki et al. 2017
Marky peat with OC = 27% 30% Flyash 15 100 – Tastan et al. 2011
Organic soil with OC = 26%, FC = 23% 50% Pulp Mill Flyash 0.92* 3* – Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021
Organic soil with OC = 36.9% 20% Flyash 38 85 28 Nath et al. 2017
Indian peat with OC = 20% 30% cement 11 2900 90 Paul and Hussain 2020
OC = 36% 10
Teluk Intan Peat with OC = 80.86%, 20% silica fumes 42.94 1063.94 28 Ahmad et al. 2021
FC = 80.4%
Hemic with OC = 53.16% Biomass silica stabilizer 13 275 28 Hassan et al. 2019

Flyash and 14 days for lower dosages of flyash (< 20%) whereas

for higher dosages, the strength gain was higher and signifi-
Stabilization of inorganic soft soils by Flyash is a well-estab- cant. The compressibility characteristics also decreased on
lished chemical treatment technique (Moghal et al. 2020a; treatment with flyash with a decrease in Cα/Cc from 0.068
Sivapullaiah and Moghal 2011). However, the effectiveness to 0.02926, 0.02524, and 0.02477 for 30%, 40%, and 50%
of flyash in treating organic soils is not much explored. Soil of flyash (Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021). Figure 6 shows the
with OC of 27% was mixed in dry form with dry flyash as variation of UCS with chemical stabilizers.
per the guidelines in (ASTM 2009) and prepared with dif-
ferent percentages of flyash and subjected to curing (Tastan
et al. 2011). The UCS strength of the soil increased from
15 kPa to greater than 100 kPa with an increase in 12 content
as in Table 6. Similar improvement in UCS was observed
for soil with OC of 36% with an increase in 12 and curing
period (Nath et al. 2017). However, a significant increase in
resilient modulus was not observed for this soil even with
increased flyash content and the appropriate water con-
tent for resilient modulus increase was the optimum water
content.
Pulp Mill Flyash (PMFA) is a non-hazardous byprod-
uct of wood combustion in the power boilers of pulp and
paper mills, and is recognized as an energy-efficient and
cost-effective alternative for Ordinary Portland Cement in
geotechnical engineering applications. Soil with an organic
content of 26% was stabilized using PMFA. The slow rate
of improvement was observed in qu after curing for 7 days Fig. 6  Variation of UCS with chemical stabilizers

13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
Using kaolin
Kaolin is a subgroup of the clay minerals which has been
recognized as a natural pozzolan capable of replacing
cement in civil engineering applications. Test specimens
with organic content of 90% and fiber content of 96%
were tested for UCC and falling head permeability tests.
UCS test results revealed that the partial replacement of
cement by 10% kaolin gave the highest unconfined com-
pressive strength which implies that the hydration effect
was optimum at this proportion of cement and kaolin
(90% C:10%K) with silica sand dosage of 596 kg/m3. The
strength achieved by kaolin is due to its capability of react-
ing with calcium hydroxide released from cement hydroly-
sis which results in the formation of secondary compres-
sion products. The lesser value obtained for 100% cement
stabilized soil can be attributed to the fact that calcium
released during hydration is retained on the organic matter
and thereby sufficient calcium ions are not left for pozzo-
lanic reactions (Clare and Sherwood 1954; Maclean and
Sherwood 1962).
Stabilization by kaolin also reduced the permeability
of the soil from 6.25 × ­10−6 m/s to 9.72 × ­10−13 m/s after
7 days of curing. The reduction in permeability can be
attributed to the high packing efficiency of silica sand and
the change in the pore structure by kaolin (Wong et al.
2013). A similar trend of permeability reduction was
observed in soils with high OC in the range of 88–99%
when stabilized using 75% cement and 25% ground granu-
lated blast furnace slag (Ali et al. 2010) and by using lime
(Sakr et al. 2009) as indicated in Fig. 7. However, in some
organic soils, the use of chemical stabilizers has led to
an increase in 6 up to a certain dosage beyond which the
permeability values started to decrease (Hebib and Farrell
2003).
Fig. 7  Effect of stabilizers on the permeability of organic soils
Page 15 of 26 1123
Electroosmotic treatment
The transport of water through the voids in the soil is termed
Electro-osmosis and is widely used for geotechnical engi-
neering applications for electro-osmotic dewatering and
consolidation of soft soils (Mitchell 1993). This technique
has been extended to the stabilization of peat and it has been
observed that the process is greatly influenced by the degree
of decomposition of the soil (Asadi et al. 2010). On applica-
tion of the electrokinetic technique, the peat water migrated
from anode to cathode for fibrous as well as amorphous peat
samples. The increase in strength at the anode can be attrib-
uted to the flocculation of the particles followed by a reduc-
tion in pH whereas dispersion of the particles at the cathode
reduced the soil strength. Since the fibers act as a reinforce-
ment, the packing of particles in the fibrous sample showed
greater resistance to the peat water flow in comparison to
the amorphous sample. Also, the higher colloidal fractions
in the amorphous sample contributed to the effectiveness of
the electrokinetic technique and the charges in both samples
were dependent on pH.
The use of prefabricated vertical drains in electrokinetic
treatment on peat samples was investigated (Kaniraj et al.
2010) by considering the effect of various parameters such
as organic content, voltage gradient, water content, electrode
configuration, and the presence of roots. The tests revealed
that the 2anodes-1cathode configuration had a significant
effect on the technique compared to the 1anode-1cathode
configuration considering the factors such as surface defor-
mation, more uniform distribution of water content, and und-
rained strength after consolidation. Due to the higher water
content at the cathode after the consolidation, the undrained
shear strength was also lower at the cathode end. An opti-
mum voltage gradient of 120 V/m enhanced the process but
the presence of roots in the soil sample affected the amount
of water that drained out of the experimental set up.
When electrokinetic treatment was implemented along
with lime and cement columns in peat, columns of 38 mm
diameter were installed near the anode end of the testbed
columns (Kaniraj and Yee 2011). Different binder factors
were used in the lime and cement columns and the amount
of binder to be mixed with the organic soil was determined
by Eq. (7).
wb = a × V c (7)
where wb is the amount of binder, Vc is the volume of the
column and a is the binder factor. It was observed that
the cement columns produced a greater effect in increas-
ing the undrained shear strength and reducing the water
content from the soil in comparison to the lime columns.
However, the trend changed post the consolidation period
with a reduction in undrained strength with time for cement
13
1123 Page 16 of 26
column installed soil and an increase in undrained strength
in the case of lime columns. The influence of the binder fac-
tor on the columns was not investigated for this study. The
use of chemicals such as calcium chloride ­(CaCl2), along
with hydroxide ions, generated at the cathode has exhib-
ited a reaction with the dissolved silicates and aluminates in
the clay fraction of the organic soil and has resulted in the
formation of cementing agents such as calcium silicate and
aluminum hydrate (Moayedi et al. 2012).
A similar study assessed the feasibility of injecting
cement into peat electrokinetically and this method altered
the physical, chemical, and microstructural characteris-
tics of the soil (Moayedi et al. 2014). The shear strength
was improved by 308% and the microstructural study also
revealed the formation of cement agents such as calcium
silicate hydrate and calcium aluminium hydrate. Lately, the
electrokinetic technique has been used in conjunction with
the biocementation process using ureolytic bacteria (Safdar
et al. 2021b). This combination has also contributed to sig-
nificant improvement in UCC by more than 85% and the
strength gain has been in agreement with the increase in
calcium carbonate (­ CaCO3) precipitate with an increase in
the time period of testing. Further refinement of this process
offers a promising solution for the treatment of soil under the
existing infrastructure.
Microbially induced or enzymatically induced calcite
precipitation
The use of chemical stabilizers contributes to the high car-
bon footprint emissions and hence a transition from their
usage to alternative soil stabilization techniques is impera-
tive. The need for sustainable and environmentally friendly
ground improvement techniques has paved the way for the
implementation of bio-stabilization or bio-inspired tech-
niques in the field of geotechnical engineering (Almajed
et al. 2021). A collaboration and cross-training between
engineers, researchers, and practitioners are essential to
developing such bio-inspired solutions to address the differ-
ence between natural and engineered environments in terms
of temporal and spatial scale (DeJong 2013; Martinez et al.
2021). Microbial cementation is to form soil particle-binding
material after the introduction of microbes and specific addi-
tives into the soil (Ivanov and Chu 2008). Biogeochemical
process such as Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation
(MICP) in which precipitates of calcium carbonate are pro-
duced by a combination of dissolved calcium ions and urea
produced by the urease bacteria after hydrolysis has shown a
successful modification of mechanical properties of organic
soils (Safdar et al. 2021a; Almajed et al. 2021).
Samples inoculated with Bacillus licheniformis exhibited
better performance in terms of UCS and ­CaCO3 content
obtained and hence further evaluation of settlements was
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
done by B. licheniformis. Oxidation did not prove to be a
dominant mechanism for settlement (Safdar et al. 2021a).
For a range of water contents, measurements of shrinkage
upon drying exhibited a 16% reduction in the volume change
while the values of the coefficient of volume compressibility
and the coefficient of secondary compression indicated that
the volumetric strains of the treated soil upon 1D compres-
sion were reduced by 32–47% compared to the untreated
soil.
Isolation of calcite precipitating bacteria from local soil
followed by the introduction of treatment solution with bac-
teria (Bacillus pasteurii) into the peat was monitored for
change in pH with respect to time for indication of any bio-
logical activity (Canakci et al. 2015a). The SEM images
revealed that ­CaCO3 crystals precipitated between peat par-
ticles and the ideal pH value for the calcite precipitation
was found to be 9.3. This mechanism aided in decreasing
their permeability introducing the bacterial solution by an
injection system and the results were in agreement with the
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis and energy-
dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis (Sidik et al. 2014). Direct
shear test in the consolidated drained mode and 1-D con-
solidation tests were carried out on sandy organic soil for
evaluating the efficiency of Bacterial calcium carbonate
precipitation (BCCP) (Canakci et al. 2015b). BCCP-treated
sample reached its first consolidation yield point after break-
age of the bond between the calcite crystals whereas the
raw organic soil particles attained it beyond 11 kPa. The
solid calcite particles that filled the voids in the organic soil
continued to take more stress with small deformation until
45 kPa which happened to be the second consolidation yield
stress.
The compressibility and permeability of the treated sam-
ples reduced when the voids in the organic soil filled with
solid calcite particles. The cohesion of the soil increased
owing to the cementation process at a low displacement
whereas the breakage of the cementation bonds resulted in
low cohesion values at a high horizontal displacement. An
increase in the angle of internal friction was observed for
both low and high horizontal displacements. MICP when
combined with surcharge loading has also proved to be
effective in increasing the UCS considerably whereas the
calcite content decreased with an increase in surcharge load
(Phang et al. 2019).
Owing to the difficulty in maintaining a controlled envi-
ronment and complexity in the cultivation of urease-produc-
ing microorganisms, researchers have switched to the usage
of a urease enzyme/plant-derived enzyme for inciting the
hydrolysis process (Almajed et al. 2021). The enzymatically
induced calcite precipitation also aids in the biocementa-
tion process in soils. A study conducted on the enhance-
ment of shear strength of organic soils using the soybean
crude enzyme increased the shear strength by more than
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
50% (Putra et al. 2021) as shown in Fig. 8. Precipitation tests
were conducted to determine the mass of precipitated cal-
cite by following the procedure adopted by (Neupane et al.
2013). The hydrolysis rates were improved by an increase in
soybean concentration which ultimately enhanced the calcite
mass. However, a lower precipitation ratio was obtained by
the increasing reagent (a combination of urea and calcium
chloride) concentration for the same soybean concentration.
The direct shear test results revealed that the cohesion of
organic soils improved whereas the internal friction angle
had no significant change with an increase in soybean con-
centration. Thus, soybean proved to be an effective cata-
lyst in comparison to bacteria (Canakci et al. 2015b; Sidik
et al. 2014) for enhancing the shear strength of organic soil
(Fig. 8).
Biopolymers
Similar to MICP and EICP techniques, stabilization by
biopolymers is slowly gaining acceptance in the field of soil
stabilization and has been shown to improve the properties
of soft soils or problematic soils (Latifi et al. 2017). Another
advantage of biopolymer is that the ­CO2 released at the end
of the service period due to biopolymer degradation is usu-
ally reabsorbed by surrounding fora and fauna and hence
remains carbon–neutral (Vydehi and Moghal 2022).
Xanthan gum treatment for peat samples was carried out
for assessing the shear strength characteristics. The mix-
ing procedure and curing system were adopted as per the
guidelines presented in EuroSoilStab (2002). Significant
improvement in shear strength obtained from UCS and
direct shear test was observed up to 2% of xanthan gum
beyond which there was a decline in the strength. Addition-
ally, the strength gain was significant within the first 28 days
of curing. The study revealed that xanthan gum can be a
Fig. 8  Effect of calcite precipitation on UCS
Page 17 of 26 1123
sustainable alternative to chemical stabilizers for the treat-
ment of peats (Latifi et al. 2016). Meanwhile, the weakening
of intermolecular bond strength between the monomer units
and the method of mixing pose challenges to the field appli-
cation of biopolymer in terms of biodegradation. Further
research is imperative to achieve an efficient stabilization of
soil (Vydehi and Moghal 2022).
Mixing strategies adopted for stabilization
The design guide of soft soil stabilization (EuroSoilStab
2002; Hebib and Farrell 2003) provides an understanding
of field stabilization by highlighting the different methods of
stabilizing soft organic soils, the design approaches, and the
tests methods to determine the appropriate binder. Addition-
ally, the site equipment and installation procedure, which is
mainly based on the experiences gained at the seven test sites
of the European project EuroSoilStab is also highlighted.
The sample preparation for stabilization involved the
removal of isolated roots and coarse material from the wet
peat at its natural state and subjected to a mixing procedure
with a mixer for attaining homogenization. The required
binder dosage relative to the wet mass of the peat was pro-
vided for cement and siliceous sand in kg/m 3. After the
desired curing period in plastic tubes of 50 mm in inter-
nal diameter and 250 mm in height and under a pressure of
9 kPa, the specimens were extracted for testing (Ali et al.
2010). A similar mixing procedure was adopted for the mass
stabilization of a soft soil deposit in southeastern Brazil
using cement (Axelsson et al. 2002). The adopted molding
technique is normally used in Finland and is intended to
resemble the field conditions of mass stabilization.
Based on the early strength attained by cement dosage,
150 kg/m3 was adopted as the binder dosage for field stabi-
lization of soil. The entire area required for stabilization was
divided into cells of equal size with due consideration to the
capacity of the feed tanks (Lemos et al. 2020). Compressed
air was admitted to the soil followed by blending facilitated
by drum rotation coupled to the hydraulic arm. Binder dos-
age in the form of dry cement powder was injected by a
pressure feeder into the drum. A homogeneous soil–cement
blend was achieved by the combined movement of drum
rotation and vertical movement from the surface to the
required depth of 6 m. As per the recommendations given
by EuroSoilStab (2002) a 1.0-m-thick fill was placed over
the stabilized soil laid with a nonwoven geotextile under
applied vertical preloading stress of around 18 kPa.
Microstructural studies
The scanning electron microscope (SEM) provides an
illustration of the soil particles and their arrangements. In
the case of soils stabilized with cement, the cementitious
13
1123 Page 18 of 26
products such as calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) and calcium
aluminium hydrate (CAH) responsible for binding the soil
particles were clearly observed from the SEM images as
indicated in Fig. 3 (Ali et al. 2010). Studies conducted on
peat samples of OC 96.45% and FC of 90.39% displayed
the organic coarse particles with fibers in a dispersed and
random arrangement. Treatment with cement led to the for-
mation of CSH of lamellar form and created a trellis-like
structure on and between the soil particles. The interlocking
provided by CSH subsequently reduced the soil pores. On
further increasing the cement content (75% cement and 25%
slag), the secondary hydration products (CSH and CAH)
were formed resulting in increased strength of Klang peat.
The surface morphological features were similar for the
Indian peat which was stabilized with cement, GGBS, and
RHA. Although, the treatment for a combination of cement-
GGBS and cement-RHA showed less denseness and com-
pactness in comparison to the treatment with cement alone
(Basha et al. 2005; Mohanty et al. 2021; Paul and Hussain
2020).
The SEM image of the Wabasca soil with OC of 26%
and FC of 23% showed the presence of loose particles with
elongated fibrous structures (Pokharel and Siddiqua 2021).
The treatment with PMFA oriented the soil particles into
a specific arrangement. The increase in PMFA content
changed the structure of the cementitious products on the
soil particles from a thinner skeleton to a thicker skeleton
structure. The products of hydration or the cementing mate-
rials within the pores of the soils in the form of white lumps
could be either calcium aluminate silicate hydrate (CASH),
CSH, and CAH. It has been reported that the formation of
these products led to a significant improvement in strength
(Kunther et al. 2017).
The field emission SEM of the raw soil revealed a ran-
dom arrangement of the soil particles with the presence of
discernible voids as obtained for several organic soils of
Malaysia (Sapar et al. 2020; Tang et al. 2011; Wong et al.
2008). The FESEM images of the 90 days cured sample
incorporated with xanthan gum showed that the cementi-
tious products were well developed within the pores and the
fibers were also well coated which caused an enhancement
of the mechanical properties of the soil. This observation
of a dense structure was evident from the studies conducted
on organic soils cured for 28 days with silica fumes and
with a combination of silica fumes and cement (Ahmad et al.
2021). The samples were also analyzed by a nitrogen-based
Brunauer–Emmett–Teller ­(N2-BET) surface area method
which produced images of the soil voids and surface area
and the changes owing to the formation of cementitious
products.
With an increase in the number of curing days for the
samples stabilized with xanthan gum, the surface area
and the micropores of the samples reduced indicating the
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
formation of the cementitious products. However, the sur-
face area did not reveal any considerable changes beyond
28 days which stressed the fact that a major part of the sta-
bilization procedure and strengthening of the sample had
occurred within 28 days of curing itself (Latifi et al. 2016).
Another technique that is well suited for soil with a high
volume of water is the Cryo scanning electron microscopy
(Santagata et al. 2008). The SEM images of an organic soil
stabilized with soybean enzyme revealed that the presence of
organic content inhibited the precipitation process at a high
concentration of soybeans resulting in undissolved soybeans.
The rhombohedral and spherical shape of the precipitated
material and its location might have reduced the effective-
ness of the process. It is thus advised to derive a method to
isolate the undissolved soybeans in order to optimize the use
of soybeans as a bio-catalyst (Putra et al. 2021).
Mineralogical studies
The mineralogical composition by X-ray diffraction (XRD)
of the different Indian Peats revealed that the major min-
erals present in the soil sample were calcite-CaCO3,
quartz-SiO2, and halloysite hydrate ­Al2Si2O5(OH)4·2H2O,
feldspar-KAlSi3O8/NaAlSi3O8/CaAl2Si2O8, and clay, with
the predominant mineral being quartz. Post-treatment with
cement, GGBS, and RHA, the composition showed the
presence of CSH and CAH indicating that the pozzolanic
reactions had taken place in the soil and the presence of
other minerals such as quartz ­[SiO2] and halloysite hydrate
­[Al2Si2O5(OH)4·2H2O]. In another sample with OC of 20%
and FC of 8%, the XRD showed the presence of ettringite.
Eventually, the peaks produced by CASH and ettringite van-
ished which can be attributed to the replacement of cement
by GGBS and RHA (Lizarazo-Marriaga et al. 2010; Paul
and Hussain 2020).
Soil collected from southeastern Brazil with OC of 50%
showed the presence of montmorillonite, quartz, kaolin-
ite, and muscovite with montmorillonite as the predomi-
nant mineral in the soil. It has been reported by (Mitchell
and Soga 2005) that has a particle diameter smaller than
0.0016 mm, wlin the range of 536–540%, and Activity of
6.0–6.4 will also indicate the presence of montmorillonite.
These values are in good agreement with those of the Bra-
zilian organic soil (Lemos et al. 2020). The mineralogical
composition of soil with high OC indicated the presence of
smectite and vermiculite (Santagata et al. 2008).
Case studies
The lack of knowledge and a clear understanding of the
behavior of such highly compressible natural materials have
caused the failure of structures and many of those incidents
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
have been reported in the past. In certain cases, the sever-
ity of damages in the form of differential settlements was
elevated to such a point that the building itself had to be
abandoned.
Case study: 1
The lack of a proper subsurface investigation at the onset
of the design stage led to the commencement of differen-
tial settlement of single-storeyed concrete industrial build-
ing in less than a year in the city of London (Gould et al.
2002). On further investigation of the subsurface profile, it
was revealed that the building had intercepted the limits of
a pond. The borehole log nearby the northern wall of the
building showed the existence of 5 m of fill soil followed by
5 m of a layer comprising peat and organic silts with a NWC
of about 400% and underlain by a dense sand layer and stiff
clayey silt till stretching substantially into the subsurface.
A survey was carried out to determine the elevation of
the various points of the foundation and also the northern
wall of the building and the procedure revealed a settlement
of 180 mm which was half of the design settlement of the
building. It was also observed that the footings which were
constructed outside the boundary of the pond did not suffer
any considerable settlement. As a remedial measure, it was
proposed to construct steel piles filled with concrete over the
area influenced by the compressible deposit and founded on
the clayey silt till and also the reconstruction of the floor slab
above the affected area.
The driving of the pile required the dynamic blows
of a 1800 kg hammer and prior to laying the floor slab,
the assessment of the elevation of the column base plate
revealed a slight settlement which was rectified by wedging
the column. After the procedure, no considerable settlements
were observed in the reconstructed area, however, recurring
settlements were predominant in the area adjacent to the
northern wall of the building which necessitated periodic
maintenance.
Case study: 2
An embankment was constructed as part of a ground
improvement technique along with Prefabricated Vertical
Drains (PVD) on a section of the proposed Highway in Min-
nesota. This section of the Highway rested on a 34 ft soft
organic deposit with OC in the range of 7–36%, followed
by an inorganic stiff glacial till (Chow et al. 2019). A one-
dimensional consolidation test conducted on undisturbed
tube samples taken from the site exhibited the value of Cα/Cc
equal to 0.051 which was in good agreement with the range
of organic clays.
The coefficient of consolidation (C v) is not a fixed
value and hence the implementation of this value for
Page 19 of 26 1123
time-settlement analysis will give inaccurate results. There-
fore, another parameter termed permeability change index
(Ck) was found to appropriately produce the value of the
coefficient of permeability during the dissipation of pore
water pressure under loading. Ck is given by Eq. (8) the
expression:
Ck = eo − e∕(logk − logko ) (8)
where,
eo initial void ratio of the soil
e void ratio at any time, t
k coefficient of permeability at any time
ko initial coefficient of permeability
This relation can be used in the finite-strain hydrody-
namic equation of the ILLICON approach equation. The
ratio Ck/eowas obtained as 0.26 based on the available con-
solidation results and it was comparable with the values
reported in the previous studies (Mesri and Ajlouni 2007;
Terzaghi et al. 1996). ko was calculated by considering Ter-
zaghi’s one-dimensional consolidation and extrapolated to
the initial void ratio from the e-logk plot.
For the analysis, the peat deposit and stiff glacial till were
divided into 5 and 3 layers. Primary consolidation settlement
was estimated by back analysis in the ILLICON program.
It was understood that the interrelationship between void
ratio, permeability, and effective vertical stress can be used
to model the consolidation process.
Once the surcharge was removed, rebound (primary and
secondary) followed by secondary settlement defined by the
post-surcharge secondary compression index (Cα’), which
also possessed a secant form (Cα’’) owing to the non-line-
arity of Cα’. The settlement after removal of the surcharge
can be estimated using the following Eq. (9).
𝐂𝛂 t
S = [(C∝ ′′ ∕C∝ )( ) × Ho × 𝐥𝐨𝐠( )]∕1 + eo (9)
𝐂𝐜 t1
where,
Cα secondary compression index without surcharge
Cc compression index
Ho initial thickness of compressible layer
t1 time of interest
13
1123 Page 20 of 26
eo initial void ratio
In reality, a secant form of secondary compression must
be considered, however, Cα’ can be considered as it is
assumed to become constant over a period of time. Sec-
ondary compression post the surcharge removal was con-
tinued up to 460 days. The ratio of Cα’/Cα fell in the range
of 0.38–0.64 by considering the slope of settlement as Cα’/
(1 + eo). But it is advised that the assumption of Cα’ is not
entirely true and it will reduce with time. Hence, the predic-
tion of future settlement can be underestimated.
Case study: 3
Due to numerous peat sites in the USA, a technique termed
‘Rammed Aggregate Pier Reinforcement’ has been success-
fully implemented for various projects undertaken on peat
deposits. This technique was proposed for the construction
of a three-storey care facility in Sumner, Washington (Fox
and Edil 2001). Shallow foundations with allowable bearing
pressure of 215 kN/m2 were designed for construction on
Geopier Rammed Aggregate Pier System.
The soil stratification showed the existence of 0.4 m of
topsoil and was supported by peat layers in the depth range
of 2.3 m to 5.3 m. The groundwater table was also located
within 3 m of depth and therefore raised the feasibility of
alternatives such as excavation and replacement, Vibro
replacement stone columns, deep foundations, etc. The set-
tlements were designed to be limited to 25 mm.
The settlements of the improved soil-pier matrix were
calculated as a contributing parameter from two sections,
the upper zone consisting of soil and aggregate pier and the
lower zone underlying the soil-pier layer. The settlement
from the upper zone is estimated based on a spring analogy
(Lawton and Fox 1994) and is given by Eq. (10),
[ ]
Rs
S= q× + 1 − Ra ∕K g (10)
Ra × Rs
where
q composite footing bearing pressure
Rs Geopier element to soil stiffness ratio
Ra Ratio of Geopier area to footing area
Kg Geopier stiffness modulus
The settlement for the lower zone is estimated based on
the assumption that the vertical stress intensity for the lower
13
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
zone overlain by an aggregate pier will be equivalent to the
condition when the aggregate pier was not present. But this
assumption cannot be fully justified as the aggregate pier
definitely facilitates a better load transfer below the footing.
Pier modulus tests were conducted on the individual
aggregate piers to determine Kg showed that the measured
pier stiffness modulus value exceeded the criterion required
for limiting the settlement for this project. The advantage of
using this method is that it fastens the rate of consolidation
and also facilitates the horizontal drainage within the soil
due to the aggregate column. Further, the effective angle of
internal friction gets improved due to an increase in effective
stress owing to a faster rate of reduction in pore pressure.
Case study: 4
An embankment was constructed in 7 layers of peat and
sandy organic clays within a period of 7 months with pore
pressure measurement being monitored continuously by
means of piezometers. This work was executed as part of
a highway project in Dybvad, Denmark. On comparing the
time settlement curves obtained for field and laboratory, it
was found that maximum values of primary consolidation
settlement were in good agreement (Jørgensen 1987).
Oedometer tests on undisturbed samples revealed that
the Cα became constant once the sample was normally con-
solidated. The coefficient of secondary compression Cα was
found to have a relationship with water content as given by
the graph between water content and Cα, and is given by
Eq. (11),
C∝ = 0.35 + 0.0065w (11)
where Cα is the secondary compression index and w is the
water content of the soil. Therefore, at w = 276%, Cα = 2.1%.
Field value was also estimated to be 2.1% and from this,
it clearly indicates that compressibility does not entirely
dependent on traffic intensity which was studied by men-
tioning the number of lorries in the mean day of the year.
Practical challenges of construction
on peats/organic soils
Peats or organic soils which are deposits consisting of plant
remains and fibers, with high water content are highly vul-
nerable for construction activities. They are in fact consid-
ered to be large terrestrial reservoirs of carbon. When these
soils are drained owing to agricultural practices or engineer-
ing works, it results in the oxidation of these organic materi-
als subsequently emanating huge amounts of carbon dioxide
­(CO2) and nitrogen dioxide ­(N2O) from the soil deposit. This
contributes to global carbon emissions and hence influences
Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123
the dynamics of climate change. Hence, it is imperative to
distinguish peatlands from other areas and consider them as
key contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
Based on an estimation of the net contribution of ­CO2
from drained organic soils, it was reported to be more than
one-fourth of the net C­ O2 emissions from various sectors
such as the construction sector, agriculture, and forestry.
Among all the countries, Southeast Asia was identified as
the largest contributor (Tubiello et al. 2016). Assessment
of the long-term compression of organic soils is of prime
importance if they are proposed to be used as a founda-
tion material. The high spatial variability possessed by peat
deposits acts as an additional challenge to the engineers.
Improper site investigations and the application of a poor
construction methodology have led to differential settle-
ments of a foundation constructed on these soils and have
caused substantial damage to the buildings (Gould et al.
2002).
Conclusions
The following salient features are drawn from the extensive
review of soft soils:
• Organic soils or peats are soil deposits with organic mat-
ter present in various amounts across different parts of
the world ranging from as low as 5% to greater than 90%.
Their shear and compressibility characteristics are influ-
enced by the amount of organic matter, fiber content, and
natural water content.
• There are many classifications systems adopted, among
which one of the most reliable field tests is conducted by
means of Von post-scale which categorizes soils based
on the degree of humification into 10 categories from
H1 to H10. For engineering purposes, a relatively simple
and direct method of estimating soil organic content is
proposed by AASHTO T 267–86 termed as the loss on
ignition test.
• Organic soil deposits are subjected to significant second-
ary and tertiary consolidation settlements and long-term
settlements are of concern. The value of Cα/Cc together
with the end-of-primary (EOP) consolidation curve has
been developed to define the secondary compression
behavior of organic soil. This ratio falls in the range of
0.02–0.08 depending on the organic content and the fiber
content.
• The shear component of organic soils is mainly contrib-
uted by the frictional component owing to the orientation
of fibers along the failure plane and the tensile reinforce-
ment. The angle of internal friction falls in the range of
27°–52° whereas the undrained shear strength is in the
range of 5 kPa–27 kPa.
Page 21 of 26 1123
• The engineering performance of these soils can be
improved by relying on preloading, dynamic replace-
ment and mixing, electroosmosis, chemical, and poz-
zolanic stabilization techniques.
• Stabilization by lime and cement has resulted in sig-
nificant modification of the engineering properties such
as shear strength and compressibility by more than
40%. However, it has been observed that if the organic
content is > 20%, cement stabilization is significantly
affected.
• The use of additives like calcium chloride, sodium
silicate, flyash, GGBS, RHA, kaolin, etc. along with
cement is proven effective in achieving better mechani-
cal properties without hampering the chemical reac-
tions responsible for stabilization. Of late, owing to
the negative environmental effects related to cement,
flyash, etc., these techniques are being replaced with
sustainable, environment-friendly calcite precipitation
relying on microbes, plant-derived enzymes, and the
use of biopolymers having low greenhouse gas emis-
sions.
• Biopolymers like xanthan gum are found to increase
strength by more than 50% for organic soils. However,
extensive research is required in the area of bio-stabili-
zation of organic soils.
• When organic soils are encountered at shallow depths,
mass stabilization techniques relying on Early Strength
Portland cement up to a depth of 6 m followed by a layer
of geotextile and surcharge fill are found to be effective.
• When organic soils are encountered for greater depths,
a rammed aggregate pier system or Geopier of 4 to 7 m
long with cell capacities up to 40 tons is found to be
effective in major projects. Depending on the stiffness
and the underlying soil characteristics, isolated or con-
tinuous shallow footings can be constructed over Geopier
with composite bearing pressures of 325 kN/m2.
Acknowledgements  The authors thank the National Institute of Tech-
nology Warangal, India, and TKM College of Engineering, India, for
providing access to the articles reviewed in this paper.
Authors’ contributions  Conceptualization: AABM and RMR. Review
of literature for drafting: RMR and AABM. Writing—review and edit-
ing: RMR and AABM. All authors have read and agreed to the pub-
lished version of the manuscript.
Funding  National Institute of Technology Warangal, India, and TKM
College of Engineering, India.
Data availability  Not applicable.
Declarations 
Conflicts of interest  The authors declare no conflict of interest.
13
1123 Page 22 of 26 Arab J Geosci (2022) 15: 1123

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