Water pressures play a crucial role in the stability of dikes and excavations. Stability and deformation incorporating the actual local pore pressures is based on:

equilibrium: σ_ij,j’ = p_,i

and can be obtained by PLAXIS. The pore pressure field is conceived as input, as a conditioned volume force. How this field is determined? Figure 1 shows a typical canal embankment near Delft in the Netherlands which conducts the excess water pumped out of the lowlands, here almost 4 meter under the canal water level.