The soil-atmosphere interface: an important boundary condition or an unnecessary complicating factor?

Soil-atmosphere interaction occurs frequently in most geotechnical situations. By including it in analyses, a high computational load can occur, and analyses are made more complex. This paper explores the key processes and demonstrates the impact and advantages of quantifying soil-atmosphere interactions. Possibilities of utilising the soil atmosphere interaction to accelerate soil processes and reduce environmental impact, and to generate energy are shown, highlighting benefits of consid- ering soil-atmosphere processes. It is also seen that it is not always necessary to directly include the processes in analyses, but that consideration of the processes can lead to approaches to directly monitor or guide monitoring. The soil-atmosphere interface is important, and whether it is necessary, useful or damaging to consider in analyses is situation dependent.