prof. Georgi Frangov, PhD

Born in 1956 in Dupnitsa. He graduated from the University of Mining and Geology in Sofia in 1981, specialising in hydrogeology and engineering geology.

He started work as an engineering geologist at NIPRORUDA in 1982 and joined the Geotechnics Laboratory of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences as a full-time postgraduate in 1984. In 1987 he defended a dissertation on the conditions and factors behind man-made landslides in Tertiary basins, supervised by Acad. Iliya Bruchev.

Until 2000 he worked at the Geotechnics Laboratory and then the Geological Institute of the Academy, where he was elected senior research fellow in 1995 and associate professor in 1996.

He has taught at the "Lyuben Karavelov" University of Structural Engineering and Architecture since 1994, on a permanent contract since 2001, and is now a professor of engineering geology there. He lectures in engineering geology and hydrogeology — including a course in English for international students. He is a member of six Bulgarian and international scientific and professional organisations.

• Landslides — initiation and reactivation along the Danube bank, the Black Sea coast and inland; forecasting and zoning by landslide hazard.
• Stabilisation measures — drainage systems, counterfort embankments and anti-landslide structures; improvement of soft soils and man-made fills.
• Regional engineering geology of Bulgaria — geological hazards and risk; co-author of the Geological Hazard Map of Bulgaria at 1:500,000.
• Ground subsidence caused by intensive groundwater abstraction.
• Foundation safety and the stability of structures.
• Seismogenic effects on engineering-geological conditions and slopes.
• Protection of cultural heritage — rock monuments affected by slope and weathering processes.

Author and co-author of more than 130 scientific and applied publications, 11 of them in refereed journals and 4 in journals with an ISI impact factor. His work has been cited over 110 times in Bulgaria and abroad, including 9 citations in impact-factor journals.

By type of publication

• Articles in foreign journals — 6
• Articles in Bulgarian journals — 11
• Articles in yearbooks and edited volumes — 10
• Conference and symposium papers abroad — 29
• Conference and symposium papers in Bulgaria — 31
• Abstracts in conference proceedings — 8

Projects and expert work

He has led five international projects in engineering geology and taken part in surveys of hundreds of sites across the country — for the design of buildings and hydraulic structures, the stabilisation of unstable slopes and deep excavations, water-supply wells, and the monitoring of geological hazard processes. He is a sought-after expert and supervisor on technical and scientific boards.