This paper evaluates how subsurface database management complements the traditional procedures and practices in geotechnical engineering. It explores new methods of geotechnical project management and delivery. It observes how the acquisition and storage of subsurface exploration data has advanced beyond handwritten paper archived in cardboard boxes to being collected and transformed electronically and stored in the compute cloud. This paper explores why all this advancement happened, what enabled it, and how it shaped contemporary geotechnical project delivery. The flow from raw field data to lab data, to data turned into information via reporting, to data represented geospatially, to data interpretation, interpolation, and extrapolation and, finally, data turned into 3D models is discussed and illustrated. The described data flow is used in building information modeling (BIM) and collaborative ecosystems shared among various stakeholders and across different geographical locations. Transformation in the way data has been handled was possible by shifting from an information ownership to an information stewardship mindset.
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Strahimir Antoljak (2020) studied this question.