a bridge or culvert in the example of fig1 a box culvert 11 is illustrated along with an overlying construction such as a bridge construction 12 the culvert 11 includes sidewalls 13 and a base 15 that may be constructed of for example poured concrete the culvert 11 may further include intermediate supports such as one or more columns 19 fig1 is further intended to represent a subsurface support in which the sidewalls 13 of the culvert serve the same purposes in terms of supporting an overhead structure thus as previously mentioned the culvert 11 can also be generically described herein as an abutment it is also intended that fig1 illustrate a generic construction for a bridge that overlies the abutment accordingly the bridge 12 includes a plurality of bridge girders or beams 22 a road surface 14 overlies the bridge beams 22 fig1 more particularly illustrates a first embodiment of the system of the invention both ends of the construction have been repaired to include confined soils 20 the confined soils include layers of sheets of geosynthetic material with compacted fill placed between each sheet in order to emplace the sheets of material the superstructure of the bridge is removed and areas near the ends of the bridge are excavated shown as excavated areas 18 according to.