How is the geological engineering profession affected by technological changes?
Surely, the profession is changing as the society turns from resource industries to new technology-based endeavours. It is changing, but demand for geological engineers is likely to increase. As population grows and the technological power of the society becomes more formidable, we must pay much more attention to environmental problems and natural hazards. This requires large amount of high quality geological engineering work. Inevitable changes such as high density housing, increased use of underground space, high speed ground transport, better production and distribution of energy and more efficient waste disposal will create enormous challenges for geological engineers in the future. At the same time, productivity of geological engineers is not as much affected by computers and automation as it is in other engineering disciplines. Much of our work requires human judgment, which cannot easily be supplanted by computers. Our work cannot be farmed out to other countries, as it has to t
