Venice, the enchanting Italian city built on a lagoonal environment, faces ongoing geotechnical challenges due to natural processes and anthropogenic influences. Over the past century, extensive geotechnical investigations have been conducted to characterize the unique stratigraphy of Venice's soils. Some key locations, representative of the city's diverse soil profiles, have undergone in-depth analysis, with investigations reaching depths of tens of meters. Three key sites-Malamocco, Treporti, and La Grisa-were strategically selected to study the complex mechanical properties of Venetian soils. In this study, we present a comprehensive synthesis of the most significant findings from the geotechnical investigations conducted throughout the Venetian lagoon over recent decades, focusing on methodologies for the evaluation of stiffness parameters in highly heterogeneous soil layers. These results enhance the understanding of geological and geotechnical behaviour of Venice's subsoil and provide crucial data for developing resilient engineering solutions.

It is essential to investigate soil hydro-thermal behavior to reduce the potential damage to geotechnical constructions caused by varying climatic conditions. In this work, an in-situ monitoring station was built on a clay slope with high groundwater table, situated in Yixing, China. Ten SMT-100 sensors were instrumented on the site to record the evolutions of soil temperature and volumetric water content at various depths. Meteorological information, including relative humidity, air temperature, rainfall, wind speed and solar radiation, and slope runoff was collected. A numerical investigation was also conducted to analyze the variations of soil hydrothermal response to the recorded climatic conditions by combing coupled hydro-thermal model and soilatmosphere interaction model. The profiles of soil temperature and volumetric water content suggest that the diurnal changes are limited to depths <40 cm, and the seasonal changes are usually approaching a location deeper than 120 cm. Soil heterogeneity can affect its hydro-thermal response, e.g., higher volumetric water content was observed at the points with lower dry density, which is mainly related to soil water retention capacity. However, appropriate theoretical models to consider soil heterogeneity in the description of soil hydrothermal properties need to be further investigated.