This comprehensive text explores the technologies and developments in excavations for any type of surface or underground excavation. The first several chapters cover unit operations, including drilling, explosives and blasting, mucking, haulage, hoisting, and supports and reinforcement. The book then describes excavation techniques for various operations, such as tunneling, raising, sinking, drifting, stoping, quarrying and surface mining, underground mining, pillar blasting, and liquidation. It also examines the design, planning, and analysis of excavations as well as the construction of surface and subsurface excavations, such as caverns. Case studies focus on heavy underground blasting during pillar recoveries.

Martin Welker started his career as a plankton ecologist at the Institute of Freshwater Ecology, Berlin. His PhD thesis focused on cyanobacteria and their toxins, with a particular emphasis on the release and degradation of microcystins by biotic and abiotic processes. As a post-doc at the Technical University of Berlin and Institute Pasteur, Paris, he explored the diversity of cyanobacterial metabolites and their biosynthesis. In 2006, Martin joined AnagnosTec, contributing to the development of microbial identification systems for clinical diagnostics. In 2010, Martin joined bioMérieux as senior scientist where he works on clinical microbiological diagnostics and research.

Ingrid Chorus completed her PhD at the Technical University, Berlin, supporting a collaborative ecosystem study of a highly eutrophic urban lake, and in the 1980’s, she studied the restoration of lakes to from heavy eutrophication. In 1991, Ingrid became head of the German Federal Environment Agency’s unit on drinking-water resources and began her focus on cyanotoxin research and management. From 2007 until 2018, she led the agency’s Department for Drinking-Water and Swimming-Pool Hygiene. A key focus of her work was developing and implementing the WHO Water Safety Plan approach, particularly towards catchment and waterbody management.