**Preface to "Numerical Modeling in Civil and Mining Geotechnical Engineering"**

Performing numerical modeling has become a routine task for academic researchers and consulting engineers in civil and mining engineering. Despite its great popularity and wide use in geotechnical engineering, one cannot hide the fact that a large portion of people who perform numerical modeling do not believe in their own numerical results—a phenomenon particular to geotechnical engineering. The crisis of confidence in numerical modeling in geotechnical engineering can be partly explained by the instability and unreliability of numerical results, the heterogeneity of field materials in space, and the unreliability or unrepresentativeness of experimental results. In the purpose of raising people's awareness on this critical issue and promoting people's confidence in the numerical modeling applied in civil and mining geotechnical engineering, this Special Issue (SI) was launched and paper invitations were sent to leading scholars in civil and mining geotechnical engineering. Fourteen articles were published not only for their originality and novelty but also for their details in numerical and/or physical models. These articles reflect the state-of-the-art of numerical modeling applied in geotechnical engineering and exhibit the useful process of numerical and physical modeling. The success of this SI would be impossible without the reviewers' significant efforts and contributions and the timely and constant support provided by the staff of the editorial office of Processes. The authors' efforts in accounting for the reviewers' comments and the academic editors' requirements of corrections equally deserve to be acknowledged.

> **Li Li** *Editor*
