Evaluation of karst hazards for civil and industrial buildings

The European part of Russia exhibits highly developed sulphate and carbonat e karst. It mostly occurs within river valleys with relatively thin coverin g deposits. These conditions may induce karst collapses, which appear to be the main danger for civil and industrial buildings. Evolution of karst roc ks includes several epochs of karst development, which causes complicated d istribution of karst caves in karst rocks and, as the result, irregular dis tribution of karst caves on the surface. Karst hazards prediction is mostly reliable within the geotechnical system "Karst-Construction", using probab ility methods. This approach allows creating 3 types of antikarst protectio n (alternative design of construction arrangement on a plan, structural pro tection of a construction and plugging of karst caves beneath construction foundation) and selecting the optimum or the most effective version or thei r rational combination.