The 2010 Hans Cloos lecture

Abstract

Urban geology began to develop in the 1950s, particularly in California in relation to landuse planning, and led to Robert Legget publishing his seminal book "Cities and geology" in 1973. Urban geology has now become an important part of engineering geology. Research and practice has seen the evolution from single theme spatial datasets to multi-theme and multi-dimensional outputs for a wide range of users. In parallel to the development of these new outputs to aid urban development, regeneration and conservation, has been the growing recognition that city authorities need access to extensive databases of geoinformation that are maintained in the long-term and renewed regularly. A further key advance has been the recognition that, in the urban environment, knowledge and understanding of the geology need to be integrated with those of other environmental topics (for example, biodiversity) and, increasingly, with the research of social scientists, economists and others.Despite these advances, it is suggested that the value of urban geology is not fully recognised by those charged with the management and improvement of the world's cities. This may be because engineering geologists have failed to adequately demonstrate the benefits of urban geological applications in terms of cost and environmental improvement, have not communicated these benefits well enough and have not clearly shown the longterm contribution of geo-information to urban sustainability. Within this context future actions to improve the situation are proposed.

Geological Mapping in Urban Areas. A Case Study From the Inner City of Thessaloniki, Greece

“…Legget, 1973), while the term Urban geology appeared by Alfors et al (1973) for the master plan for California (Natural disasters, Geology, Land use, Urban plan) published by California Division of Mines and Geology (University of California Libraries). Similar publications and methodologies can be found in the Urban Geology series of the Geological Survey of Japan, in McCall et al (1996), in lectures like "The contribution of urban geology to the development, regeneration and conservation of cities" (Culshaw and Price, 2011), as well as in special issues like Engineering Geology and the Environment: Marinos et al (1996Marinos et al ( , 2001). …”

Urban geology of African megacities

“…According to Culshaw and Price (2011), this may be because engineering geologists have failed to adequately demonstrate the benefits of urban geological applications in terms of cost and environmental improvement, have not communicated these benefits well enough, and have not clearly shown how the long-term contribution of geoscience information would help in the attainment of urban sustainability. Within this context future actions to improve the situation must be sought.…”

“…The cities considered include Cairo (Shata, 1988), Johannesburg (de Beer, 1986, Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela Bay) (Carter, 1987), Cape Town (Mountain and van der Merwe, 1981), Durban (Maud, 1981a), Pietermaritzburg (Maud, 1981b), and Pretoria (Kraft, 1981). Culshaw and Price (2011) noted that these papers are of varying depth and quality, but that they do provide an introduction to the geological conditions, in relation to development and regeneration, for each of the cities described.…”

“…But perhaps the most customised definition is that of Culshaw and Price (2011): ''The study of the interaction of human and natural processes with the geological environment in urbanised areas, the resulting impacts, and the provision of the necessary geo-information to enable sustainable development, regeneration and conservation''. According to Marker (2009) 'urban geology' is not a discipline, as such, but, rather, involves the deployment of the full range of relevant geoscience techniques to urbanised areas.…”

The relevance of physical forces on land-use change and planning process

“…Land-use change analysis informs spatial planning activities, as mentioned from McHarg (1971) to Steiner (2011), where complex consideration of physical parameters can be observed in strategic planning, addressing environmental constraints and restrictions, for example, or the protection of natural resources, building capacity, and susceptibility to natural hazards (Mulder 1992;El May, Dlala, and Chemini, 2010;Culshaw and Price 2011). Geological units, hydrology, slope, hypsometry and aspect features are frequently considered factors affecting planning, land-use transformation or the definition of regulatory principles for the conservation of specific areas (Tavares and Soares 2002;Randolph, 2004).…”