_applied sciences_  
_Editorial_  
Trends and Prospects in Geotechnics  
[PERSON] 1,*(c) and [PERSON] 2,*(c)  
The Special Issue, titled \"Trends and Prospects in Geotechnics\", was launched with an invitation to authors from all over the world to address current and future challenges in geotechnics. As is well known, the world is constantly changing, and so are geotechnics. Advances in constitutive models, sustainable materials, biobased methods, nanotechnology, energy, artificial intelligence, and climate change, among other topics, are examples of the most recent advances, trends, and prospects in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. Twenty-six manuscripts were submitted to this Special Issue, and twelve were accepted for publication. Contributions were received from 13 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Iraq, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Sweden, and Thailand), representing 4 continents (America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania), which addressed some of these emerging topics, with a specific focus on the research, design, construction, and performance of geotechnical works. In the first paper, [PERSON] et al. [1] study the effects of several types of cohesive-frictional soil and geotextile reinforcement configurations on the bearing capacity via laboratory tests and numerical simulation. Several factors were studied, which included embedment depth of the top reinforcement layer, width of horizontal planar form of the reinforcement, spacing between geotextile reinforcement layers, and number of reinforcement layers. The outcome of this research provides a preliminary guideline in a design of reinforced soil foundation structures with different ground soils and other reinforced soil foundation structures with different geosynthetic types. In the second paper, [PERSON] et al. [2] present a novel study that integrates the spatial time domain reflectometry technique, high precision tensiometer, and consistent outflow logging to investigate the dynamic response of moisture distribution, soil suction, and seepage flux during a transient drainage process. After performing experimental validation tests, the authors concluded that the spatial time domain reflectometry technique offers the researcher a higher resolution of moisture distribution variation with time. The third [3] and twelfth [4] papers deal with tailing dams. In the third paper, [PERSON] et al. [3] investigate the effects of the pond filling rates on excess pore water pressure and the stability of an upstream tailings dam by a numerical study. The approach presented in the paper can be a guide for dam owners to keep a sufficiently high pond filling rate, while still ensuring the desirable stability of an upstream tailings dam. On the other hand, in the twelfth paper, [PERSON] et al. [4] propose a new approach to deal with the stability problems of tailing dams. In this work, a new approach is proposed for tailings disposal: stacking compacted filtered ore tailings-Portland cement blends. The influence of compaction, as well as the amount of Portland cement, on strength and stiffness properties was evaluated. Although there are parameters that require further studies (moisture content, sustainable binders, and confining pressure), the authors concluded that the addition of a binder to the compacted filtered tailings reduces the volume of hydraulically carried out sediments, thus allowing smaller sedimentation structures downstream of the disposal structure. The fourth [5] and ninth [6] papers are focussed on the study of machine learning algorithms as a tool to accurately predict the geomechanical properties of rock or soils, thus mimimizing the costs associated with the pre-design and design stages of geotechnical structures. In the fourth paper, [PERSON] et al. [5] investigate supervised machine learning algorithms (support vector machine, random forest, AdaBoost, and k-nearest neighbour) to predict the rockfill material shear strength.