A systematic review of strategies for identifying and stabilizing dispersive clay soils for sustainable infrastructure

Dispersivity has long been a major concern in civil and geo-environmental engineering, as well as in agricultural engineering and soil sciences. Dispersive clay soils are common, but their prevalence and characteristics vary greatly across different regions of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. These soils are highly unstable and prone to erosion when exposed to water, due to their high concentration of exchangeable sodium ions and large specific surfaces. This can cause serious damage to hydraulic infrastructure. However, identifying and stabilizing dispersive clay soils is crucial for infrastructure projects, as the use of untreated soils can result in irreversible and catastrophic failures due to internal erosion and piping. The systematic management of dispersive clays is crucial to prevent the wastage of fertile agricultural land and land designated for engineering construction. Although industrialization has numerous benefits, it often results in large quantities of waste by-products that must be managed appropriately to reduce their environmental impact. The reuse of these wastes in soil improvement has become an increasingly popular approach to address both environmental pollution and cost-effectiveness concerns. Despite the growing interest in using waste by-products for soil stabilization, there is a lack of a systematic and comprehensive review of the management, mechanisms, identification systems, and improvement strategies for both traditional and non-traditional stabilizers. Therefore, there is an urgent need to review the available literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of the use of waste by-products for soil stabilization. Such a review could aid in the creation of soil stabilization methods that are both efficient and enduring while minimizing the environmental impact of waste by-products.