Kenichi Soga co-authored a new book, “Fundamentals of Soil Behavior, Fourth Edition.” Co-authors include Professor Emeritus James K. Mitchell and Geosystems alumna Professor Catherine O’Sullivan. The previous third edition attracted over 13,000 citations across geotechnical engineering and related fields like granular physics, soil science, and powder technology. This new edition has been thoroughly updated to provide the latest information on the physical properties of soil and the fundamentals of its behavior, with hundreds of tables and graphs illustrating correlations among composition, classification, state, and static and dynamic properties. Overall, each topic is addressed in a micro-to-macro sequence, considering behaviors at the atomic and/or particle scales to develop understanding of soil properties and behaviors at the macro-scale, which is relevant to engineering practice.

Two new chapters on special features of soil behavior and temperature-dependent soil behavior were added. Other chapters have been substantially updated to include the latest developments in imaging technology and particle level numerical simulations that have advanced research on the complexities of soil behavior, and recent experimental data. Its balanced integration of scientific principles with practical applications has shaped graduate education and professional practice worldwide, while also inspiring major research directions in environmental geotechnics, energy geotechnics, ground improvement, soil–structure interaction and granular physics.