Sustainability issues for underground space in urban areas

Abstract

This paper examines the continued growth in the use of underground space beneath cities and the widespread lack of significant and broad planning efforts for its use. The paper is drawn from the collective experience and prior research of the authors together with information exchanges afforded by the activities of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association's Committee on Underground Space (ITACUS). The particular focus of this paper is on sustainability issues related to urban underground space use including contribution to an environmentally sustainable and aesthetically acceptable landscape, anticipated structural longevity and the maintenance of opportunity for urban development by future generations. However, owing to their initial cost and permanent alteration of the underground environment, underground structures put a special emphasis on long-range planning which considers life-cycle cost-benefits and the selection of projects that offer the highest contribution to urban sustainability rather than a short-term fix to an individual need.

An integrated planning concept for the emerging underground urbanism: Deep City Method Part 1 concept, process and application

“…Current development of underground space in cities is facing coordination dilemmas: on one side, public infrastructures are growing fast and going deep, congestion and disorder hinder future development (Sterling 2005;Sterling, Admiraal et al 2010); on the other side, private developers are playing a major role in property development but lack of cognition of subsurface potential and comprehensive decision-making.…”

Accounting for groundwater in future city visions

“…The internal city processes that facilitate the supply, consumption and disposal of resources disturb natural systems and alter the urban environment and morphology (Huang and Hsu, 2003). Disturbance of the natural water environment in urban areas and pressure on the ecosystem services it provides is likely to become more pronounced where the physical expansion of cities is occurring at a faster rate than population growth (Sterling et al, 2012;Hunt et al, 2016). As a result inclusion of water within urban metabolism and future cities assessment is common (Rojas-Torres et al, 2014), but explicit consideration of urban groundwater systems is not, which is symptomatic of the fact that ecosystem services provided by urban underground space are not yet appreciated by most city representatives (Hunt et al, 2016).…”

A Framework for Assessment of the Influence of China’s Urban Underground Space Developments on the Urban Microclimate

“…From the beginning, the functional goal is to resolve the problem related to development and exploitation of urban underground space [19]. With the advantage of efficiently utilizing lands, expanding greening space and floor open space, underground space can reduce environmental contamination and improve the quality of the ground environment [20].…”