The first author of this monograph, Professor Yu Huang, born 1973, received his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He is now a deputy head of that department and a deputy director of the Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of the Ministry of Education at Tongji University. Professor Huang s primary area of research includes geologic disasters, computational geomechanics, earthquake geotechnical engineering, environmental geology, and foundation engineering. He has authored more than 150 technical publications, including more than 30 papers in international refereed journals such as the "Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment," " Engineering Geology," " Landslides," " Natural Hazards," " Environmental Earth Sciences," " Geotextiles and Geomembranes," and" Waste Management & Research." He now serves on the editorial board for the "Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment" (the official journal of IAEG), "Geotechnical Research "(ICE) and "Geoenvironmental Disasters" (Springer). Co-author Zili Dai, born 1987, is a Ph.

D. student of Professor Yu Huang at Tongji University. He received his bachelor s degree in Civil Engineering from Shanghai University in 2010. He worked at Northwestern University and the University of California, Berkeley as a visiting scholar between 2012 and 2013. Co-author Weijie Zhang, born 1986, was awarded bachelor s and master s degrees in Geological Engineering from Tongji University. He worked as a master s student in Professor Yu Huang s research group between 2009 and 2012. He is currently a Ph.D.

student in Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan.".