Many excavations for basement construction will encounter groundwater.

If not suitably
managed and controlled, groundwater can cause problems for excavation and basement
construction. These problems can range from nuisance seepages that reduce the
efficiency of construction operations, through to major inflows that can result in instability,
inundation and even collapse of the excavation.
While poorly controlled groundwater is an undoubted hazard to construction, this need not
be the case.
Adequate control of groundwater is important, and is a necessary part of a well planned
basement construction project. In many cases the Planning Authorities, Party Wall
Surveyors and other regulatory bodies may want to see evidence that groundwater will be
suitably managed during excavation.

GROUNDWATER PROBLEMS WHEN CONSTRUCTING BASEMENTS

If an excavation is made without suitable groundwater control various problems can result:
The excavation may flood as a result of groundwater inflows from water-bearing
layers of soil or rocks.
High pore water pressures in batter slopes at the sides of the excavation may lead
to instability or seepage erosion of batter slopes.
Groundwater uplift pressures beneath the floor of an excavation can give the risk of
a base heave or piping failure in the base of the excavation.
Groundwater pressures can cause excessive hydrostatic loads on excavation
retaining structures such as concrete pile walls.
Dewatering methods (also known as groundwater control methods) can be used to
control groundwater and avoid these problems.
In addition to groundwater, surface water also needs to be controlled. Any
excavation should have a system for surface water control, typically consisting of
sump pumps and French drains. Surface water can come from a variety of sources,
including rainfall, direct seepage from nearby rivers or lakes, leaking sewers and
water mains or even run-off from concrete operations or cleaning of the site
excavator! Whatever its source, surface water should be controlled to allow efficient
construction operations.
Groundwater control methods are classified into two main types: exclusion or
pumping.
GROUNDWATER CONTROL BY EXCLUSION
Groundwater pumping can be reduced or avoided by installing a very low
permeability physical cut-off wall to exclude groundwater from the excavation. If a
low permeability stratum (such as a clay layer) exists at shallow depth beneath the
excavation then the cut-off wall can penetrate down to that stratum to create a full
cut-off.

Several different geotechnical methods can be used to form cut-off walls:

Steel sheet piles

Concrete secant pile walls

Concrete diaphragm walls
Slurry walls and trenches
Grout curtains (including permeation grouting and jet grouting)
Freeze walls (produced by artificial ground freezing)
Compressed air (for tunnels and shafts).
Concrete contiguous pile walls leave a gap between the piles and do not form an effective
cut-off to groundwater flow.
Some of the cut-off wall methods are temporary; for example steel sheet-piles can
sometimes be extracted at the end of the job. These temporary methods should not have
a significant effect on groundwater conditions at the site once the project is completed.
However, methods that permanently affect soil permeability (for example grouting) or
leave a permanent barrier in place (e.g. concrete secant pile walls) can permanently alter
groundwater flow regimes at a site it is essential that the potential impact of this be
assessed at design stage.
Even when a cut-off wall is used some pumping will be required to cope with:
Groundwater trapped within the cut-off area
Rainfall and precipitation
Seepage through the wall and through the ground.
Groundwater control by exclusion is widely used in situations when there is a risk of
external impacts (e.g. settlement of nearby structures or detrimental effects on other water
users) caused by groundwater lowering. An exclusion system can, if carried out effectively
and if ground conditions are favourable, minimise any groundwater lowering outside the
dewatered site area.
GROUNDWATER CONTROL BY PUMPING
Groundwater control by pumping involves pumping groundwater from an array of wells or
sumps with the aim of temporarily lowering groundwater levels to allow excavation to be
carried out in dry and stable conditions. Groundwater control by pumping is also known as
Groundwater Lowering, Construction Dewatering or simply Dewatering.
The most common types of groundwater control by pumping are listed below, in
approximate order of sophistication (clicking on the highlighted text well take you a
separate blog describing each technique).
sump pumping;
wellpoints;
shallow suction wells;
relief wells;
deep wells; and
eductor wells.
On a given site these techniques are not readily interchangeable. Each technique has a
relatively narrow range of application relative to two key parameters: the drawdown
required and soil permeability.
POTENTIAL EXTERNAL IMPACTS FROM DEWATERING

When basement dewatering is carried out there is the potential risk of adverse impacts on
neighbouring sites this is one of the reasons that some Planning Authorities require
Basement Impact Assessments to be carried out.
There is a wide range of potential impacts from dewatering, which can be categorised in
various ways, such as the following groups of impact types:
Geotechnical impacts including ground settlements and damage to neighbouring
structures.
Contamination impacts including drawing in contaminated groundwater from
neighbouring sites.
Water dependent feature impacts including reducing water flow to any natural
springs and wetlands that are in the vicinity of the site.
Water resource impacts including lowering water levels and reducing yield in water
supply wells that may be in the vicinity of the site.
Groundwater can be a significant problem when excavating for basement construction.
However, with good planning and the use of suitable methods groundwater need not be a
major obstacle.