Durability and Climate Resilience of Stabilized Soils and Geomaterials

Stabilized soils and geomaterials underpin much of the world's transportation, hydraulic, waste-containment, and building infrastructure. Chemical, biological, and mechanical stabilization - using cement, lime, alkali-activated and geopolymer binders, biopolymers, microbially induced carbonate precipitation, geosynthetic inclusions - is applied routinely to improve weak, expansive, or contaminated ground and to convert waste streams into engineered fills. Yet specification and acceptance criteria still rest largely on short-term strength measured on specimens cured under controlled laboratory conditions. In service, performance is governed by long-term exposure to repeated wetting and drying, freeze-thaw, drought and desiccation cracking, fluctuating groundwater and salinity, sulphate, chloride and acid attack, carbonation, leaching, and elevated temperature. Climate change is intensifying these actions and expanding their geographic reach into regions lacking guidance for such climate conditions, making the long-term durability of stabilized geomaterials central to infrastructure resilience.This Research Topic addresses the gap between short-term, strength-based specification and the long-term, climate-driven degradation of stabilized geomaterials. Accelerated durability tests remain poorly standardized, are rarely calibrated against field observations, and are seldom linked to the climate scenarios that materials will actually experience over their service live. Recent advances offer opportunities to address these limitations. Low-carbon binders, alkali-activated materials, calcined clays, industrial by-products, and bio-mediated stabilization offer alternatives to Portland cement but demand new evidence for durability. Advanced characterization, including micro-CT, SEM-EDS, XRD, NMR, and pore-structure and unsaturated-soil analyses, now links microstructural and mineralogical change to macroscopic loss of strength, stiffness and hydraulic integrity. Coupled thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical modelling, long-term exposure sites, field monitoring and machine learning can predict degradation and incorporate downscaled climate projections to be embedded in specification. We aim to bring these strands together: to establish credible durability indicators and test protocols, to quantify degradation mechanisms and rates, and to translate them into performance-based, climate-adjusted specification and service-life prediction.We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, Methods, Brief Research Reports, Data Reports and Case Reports addressing themes including:• durability of soils stabilized with cement, lime, alkali-activated and geopolymer binders, industrial by-products, biopolymers, MICP/EICP, and fibres;• response to wetting-drying, freeze-thaw, wildfire, desiccation, sulphate, chloride and acid attack, carbonation, leaching, salinization and elevated temperature;• recycled, waste-derived and manufactured geomaterials, including contaminant release and environmental stability under climatic cycling;• durability of barrier, liner and capping materials, pavement subgrades, and bound and unbound base and fill materials;• degradation of fibre-, geosynthetic- and inclusion-reinforced geomaterials, including interface behaviour;• multi-scale characterization linking microstructure, mineralogy and pore structure to strength, stiffness, and hydraulic conductivity;• accelerated ageing protocols, durability indicators and laboratory-to-field correlation;• coupled thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical modelling, machine learning and service-life prediction under climate scenarios;• life-cycle assessment, embodied carbon and circularity trade-offs of durable stabilization.Case histories and long-term exposure or monitoring datasets from diverse climatic regions are particularly encouraged. Topic editors: Geetanjali DAS, Masrur Mahedi, Md Jobair Bin Alam Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87066/durability-and-climate-resilience-of-stabilized-soils-and-geomaterials