Landmines and explosive remnants of war are still present in the Western Balkans and remain a deadly legacy of the hostilities at the end of the 20th century. Over the years, several incidents have occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Serbia, and in Croatia where intact ordnance has caused injuries and fatalities. Floods, torrential flows, and gravitational mass movements pose a particular threat. Landmines and explosive remnants of war are mobilized and displaced into previously uncontaminated areas. We first discuss the historical and technical background of this hazardous situation. We then show which hydro-morphological processes are responsible for the mobilization and displacement. We then illustrate how a prediction of the likely contaminated areas can be obtained. We show that the problem can only be tackled using a stochastic-deterministic model. However, for the eventual development of risk-hazard maps, preliminary work using laboratory experiments and field surveys is required. The article, therefore, proposes a novel approach to the problem in an international research project. The aim would be to produce risk-hazard maps that can be used by elected decision-makers, administrative authorities, and emergency personnel in affected municipalities.

The interaction between geogrid/wire fabric reinforcement and fill material in reinforced earth walls, as well as its quantification, is a complex problem that depends on a number of factors. This paper presents and discusses state of the art related to numerical simulations of pull-out tests used for investigation of interaction between cohesionless fill and reinforcement. In addition, the results of a specially designed group of numerical simulations are presented and compared with recommendations of American and European standards related to such experiments.

Institute for Materials and Structures of the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Sarajevo conducted static and dynamic testing of the RC track slab in the railway tunnel Ivan. Due to the tunnel age, traffic in the tunnel was impeded so that the reconstruction of the complete track bed structure was executed. A so-called integrated structure in which the prefabricated sleepers are connected to a stiff concrete slab by using reinforcement was applied for the first time in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The track slab was founded on heterogeneous material which includes weathered marl, granular material as well as amphibolite or schist rocks. The deflections measured under service load simulated by a locomotive and eigen frequencies indicate that the structure is quite rigid. Experimentally obtained data was used for numerical modelling of short-term settlement assuming Mohr-Coulomb material model in Plaxis and the results match quite well.