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Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228
http://www.keaipublishing.com/en/journals/underground-space/

Future cities, resilient cities – The role of underground space

in achieving urban resilience
Han Admiraal a,c,⇑, Antonia Cornaro b,c
a
Enprodes Management Consultancy BV, Marshalllaan 2, 2625 GZ Delft, the Netherlands
b
Amberg Engineering AG, Trockenloostrasse 21, 8105 Regensdorf-Watt, Switzerland
c
ITA Committee on Underground Space (ITACUS), International Environment House (MIE2), Chemin de Balexart 9, 1219 Châtelaine –
Geneva, Switzerland

Received 5 August 2018; received in revised form 19 December 2018; accepted 25 February 2019
Available online 8 May 2019

Abstract

The need for future cities to be resilient stems from the fact that now more than ever in history, both natural and human-made haz-
ards are threatening cities in the forms of shocks and stresses. The ability of cities to resist or restore themselves following these events is
dependent on their resilience.
As we now firmly enter the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which human activity, for the first time in history is directly influ-
encing the Earth’s systems, we need to develop resilient cities that can cope with the increase in hazards. Although climate change is one
factor influencing urban resilience, it is not the only one. A lack of understanding of the subsurface can also influence a city’s resilience, as
can the unplanned use of its underground spaces. In planning and developing our cities of the future, a deep understanding of the geology
that supports the city is required not only to be able to determine the possibilities of future use but also to determine whether there are
natural processes that could threaten human existence over time. The destruction of ecosystem services through unchecked human
activities could be one of these activities. In this paper, the authors will investigate how the subsurface and use of underground spaces
can influence urban resilience. The role that underground spaces can play in achieving urban resilience for our future cities will be
described.

Keywords: Underground space; Urban planning; Urban resilience

1 Introduction: The concept of urban resilience continue rapidly. This large concentration of people in
one area in combination with natural disasters and
Cities today are the core of human existence. Cities are human-made hazards makes humankind more vulnerable
where people live, work and play. As part of an irreversible than ever before.
trend, we are experiencing a mass migration from rural Referring to Hurricane Katrina, which struck New
areas to our cities. More than ever, the world’s cities have Orleans, USA in 2005, Bloomberg and Pope (2017) write
become areas of dense concentrations of humanity, and the following:
population forecasts show that the mass urbanization will
‘‘All over the world there are places like New Orleans that
need new approaches to cope with the reality that the
future climate will be different from today’s, and probably
⇑ Corresponding author at: Enprodes Management Consultancy BV,
less stable. We will need a greater resilience at all scales –
Marshalllaan 2, 2625 GZ Delft, the Netherlands.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H. Admiraal), local, regional and global – to cope with the changes in the
[email protected] (A. Cornaro). climate that are already occurring as we write this book.”

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.undsp.2019.02.001
2467-9674/Ó 2020 Tongji University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
224 H. Admiraal, A. Cornaro / Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228

This greater resilience Bloomberg and Pope call for in risks, mitigating them, preparing for risk events and ensur-
relation to climate change can be framed in a larger context ing a rapid recovery after the event has occurred. As we
as the shocks and stresses that cities will have to cope with. saw above, the risks can be defined as the shocks and stres-
Urban resilience in this context is the ability of cities to ses that cities increasingly face.
absorb these shocks and stresses and to recover from them.
In 2011, the city of Sendai in Japan was struck by an 2 Threatening shocks and stresses
earthquake and the resulting tsunami. The combined effect
was disastrous and caused heavy losses of life and property. Hajer and Dassen (2014), in their book on smarter cities,
This disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear reactor write about ‘urban metabolism’, and Renner (2018) speaks
meltdown. What is most remarkable is the recovery the city about the ‘urban being’. Both concepts illustrate the way
made and the fact that it hosted the 2015 UN World urban planners are trying to comprehend the city and try
Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The conference to look at urban life holistically. The Rockefeller Founda-
concluded with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk tion 100 Resilient Cities organization uses the same
Reduction on March 18, 2015. This date was significant, approach when looking at resilience. According to them,
since it was only four years and one week after the day dis- ‘‘(. . .) building urban resilience requires looking at a city
aster struck the city and the wider region. The Sendai holistically: understanding the systems that make up the city
Framework follows the Hyogo Framework from 2005. and the interdependencies and risks they may face.” (100
Since then, the world has faced many challenges. Resilient Cities, 2018). This in itself is a massive challenge
that will vary across cities. Hajer and Dassen (2014) talk in
‘‘Over the same 10 year time frame, however, disasters this respect about reconnecting the biophysical and social
have continued to exact a heavy toll and, as a result, the domains. It is our contention that this should also include
well-being and safety of persons, communities and coun- the subsurface, as we will expand on in the following
tries as a whole have been affected. Over 700 thousand paragraph.
people have lost their lives, over 1.4 million have been The 100 Resilient Cities organization offers an insight
injured and approximately 23 million have been made into what kind of stresses and shocks we are talking about.
homeless as a result of disasters. Overall, more than They see stresses as chronic, slow-moving disasters that
1.5 billion people have been affected by disasters in various threaten the fabric of a city. Shocks are far more acute
ways, with women, children and people in vulnerable situ- events that threaten the city (Hajer and Dassen, 2014).
ations disproportionately affected. The total economic loss Table 1 provides an overview of what they consider as
was more than $1.3 trillion. In addition, between 2008 and stresses and shocks.
2012, 144 million people were displaced by disasters. To further analyze and understand urban resilience, the
Disasters, many of which are exacerbated by climate 100 Resilient Cities organization also created a ‘City Resi-
change and which are increasing in frequency and inten- lience Framework’, which describes four dimensions that
sity, significantly impede progress towards sustainable can act as a lens through which the city can be examined.
development.” (UNISDR, 2015) Each dimension consists of three drivers, which relate to
actions cities can take to become more resilient. The four
Disasters, in the context of the Sendai Framework, are dimensions are the following: (1) Health & Well-being,
natural disasters. It is important to note that climate (2) Economy & Society, (3) Infrastructure & Environment,
change is affecting the frequency and intensity of natural and (4) Leadership & Strategy. If we look closer at Infras-
disasters such as storms, rainfall and, consequently, land- tructure & Environment, the three drivers are: Provide and
slides. In terms of vulnerability the document states: Enhance Protective Natural and Man-Made Assets,
Ensure Continuity of Critical Services, and Provide Reli-
‘‘Evidence indicates that exposure of persons and assets in able Communication and Mobility (see Fig. 1) (Hajer
all countries has increased faster than vulnerability has and Dassen, 2014).
decreased, thus generating new risks and a steady rise in In the paragraph about underground spaces, we will
disaster related losses, with a significant economic, social, take a further look at these drivers to show how the subsur-
health, cultural and environmental impact in the short, face can contribute to urban resilience. Before we come to
medium and long term, especially at the local and commu-
nity levels.” (UNISDR, 2015) Table 1
Chronic stresses and acute shocks. Taken from 100 Resilient Cities (2018).
The document defines vulnerability as: ‘‘(. . .) the condi- Chronic stresses Acute shocks
tions determined by physical, social, economic and environ-
 High unemployment  Earthquakes
mental factors or processes, which increase the  Overtaxed or inefficient public transportation  Floods
susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazards” systems  Disease
(UNISDR, 2015).  Endemic violence outbreaks
Therefore, the concept of urban resilience addresses the  Chronic food and water shortages  Terrorist
attacks
vulnerability of communities in terms of identifying the
 H. Admiraal, A. Cornaro / Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228 225

Fig. 1. Infrastructure and Environment - drivers for urban resilience. Courtesy of 100 Resilient Cities (2018).

that topic, we need to further explore the dynamics of the deep below the surface. Although minor in magnitude
subsurface and human intervention. compared with earthquakes in other countries, there was
substantial damage caused to buildings that were not
designed to withstand these forces of nature (Admiraal &
3 Geology: Friend or foe?
Cornaro, 2018). The public outcry led to a political deci-
sion to reduce gas extraction to zero within a couple of
When considering the subsurface below a city from an
years, requiring the country to look for an alternative.
urban planning point of view, we need to consider some-
After the T ohoku earthquake, the decision was made in
thing that is difficult to comprehend: we must think in
Germany in the same way to close its nuclear power sta-
terms of volume, rather than area. One of the reasons for
tions; this step required looking for alternative, renewable
this is that rather than dealing with ‘air’, we need to deal
ways to produce energy.
with ‘geology’ below the surface. Due to the unique charac-
It was the well-known former secretary-general of the
teristics of the subsurface, we need to extract materials in a
United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon (2012), who pointed out
way that humans have been doing for centuries in order to
that humankind was entering the Anthropocene. For the
create space. Although caves are the archetypical human
first time in the history of this planet, human activity was
shelter below the surface, mines, consisting of shafts and
influencing and altering the earth’s natural processes.
galleries, are the archetype for human extraction and
When looking at the subsurface for energy, storage or
exploitation of the subsurface. As such, the subsurface pro-
physical space uses, an in-depth knowledge is required of
vides goods, which are nonrenewable materials, ranging
the geology to ascertain whether human interventions will
from coal to copper and from oil to gas. At the same time,
disturb the ecosystem in a way that could be detrimental
we need to consider that for certain geologies the subsur-
to urban life.
face can contain biodiversity; through natural processes
When looking at urban resilience we need to consider
and cycles it delivers ecosystem services to support life on
past human interventions. Mining, for example, poses a
the surface. The ability for the soil to grow crops and that
potential risk as it can cause sink holes due to the collapse
for rainwater to infiltrate and naturally be filtered to drink-
of galleries. These collapses could threaten the city as a
ing water are just two examples of this (Admiraal &
chronic stress.
Cornaro, 2018).
Does this mean, from an urban resilience perspective, we
The question is whether we know sufficiently how these
should not be looking at the subsurface? In our opinion
systems work and what the effect of human interventions is
that is not the case. We do need to take a balanced
on these systems, as was discussed by Sterling and Nelson
approach and extend both our sustainable development
(2013). To illustrate this point, we can look at the extrac-
principles and our urban resilience objectives downwards
tion of natural gas from onshore facilities in the northeast-
to include the geology below our cities and urbanized
ern part of the Netherlands. The ‘Groningen’ gas field has
regions.
for over 50 years not only provided the Netherlands with
fuel to heat homes and to cook, it has also contributed
to the gross national product as an export product. That 4 Underground spaces
was the cause until the earth in that region started to move
and it was realized that the earth tremors and earthquakes How can underground spaces contribute to urban resili-
hitting the region were caused by the extraction of gas from ence? This issue has been previously explored by Sterling
226 H. Admiraal, A. Cornaro / Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228

and Nelson (2013), Bobylev, Hunt, Jefferson, and Rogers the basin is pumped out using the urban drainage system.
(2013) and Hunt, Makana, Jefferson, and Rogers (2016). In Tokyo, Japan, the same concept was used to create an
To further explore this question, we will take one dimen- enormous underground ‘temple’. The sole purpose is to
sion of the City Resilience Framework, Infrastructure store rain water to prevent flooding of the city (see Fig. 3).
and Environment, and the three drivers that determine a What has not yet been attempted is to combine this mitiga-
city’s resilience within that dimension. tion of an acute shock with the alleviation of a chronic stress,
i.e., combating water shortages by reusing the rain water
4.1 Provide and enhance protective natural and man-made that is caught in these storage basins to prevent flooding
assets (Admiraal & Cornaro, 2018).
Another example is the way that underground infras-
This driver is about protecting those protective natural tructures are a lot less susceptible to earthquakes. This
human-made assets that reduce the physical vulnerability has been proven in multiple earthquake events. In this
of city systems (100 Resilient Cities, 2018). One way to sense, underground transport systems could serve not just
investigate this point is by considering the urban heat for transporting people; they could also be used as a disas-
island effect. We know that built-up areas heat up more ter relief system, helping a city to recover after an earth-
than rural areas due to the prominence of concrete and quake event.
asphalt. We also know that in certain terrains cool winds
from surrounding hills can help to reduce the urban heat 4.3 Provide reliable communication and mobility
island effect. High-rise buildings can seriously impact this
natural effect. By considering creating underground spaces, In regard to providing a ‘free flow of people, information
the need for more space can be fulfilled while at the same and goods’ (100 Resilient Cities, 2018), using the subsurface
time maintaining this natural flow of air throughout the for this purpose is evident. Mass rapid transport systems in
city. Another example is the way in which natural sand such cities as London, Paris, New York and Moscow
dunes protect the Netherlands from the sea. In the city of demonstrate this point daily. At the same time, extensive
Katwijk, the dunes were used to create an underground use of the subsurface for pipelines and communication
car park, maintaining the natural sea defense and creating cables ensure the continuity of communications and vital
more space (see Fig. 2). supplies irrespective of the circumstances aboveground.
Being below the surface makes these systems independent
4.2 Ensure continuity of critical services from exogenic forces, such as storms. For a long time, cities
have been using the subsurface to create an urban service
One of the threats of climate change is to have more fre- layer. A good example is the city of Prague, which has a
quent highly intensive precipitation. This precipitation 90 km long network of tunnels serving the city, carrying
poses a problem for cities without urban drainage. For those gas pipes, steam pipes, water mains, high and low voltage
cities that have drainage systems, the capacity is often such cables, telecommunication cables and special networks con-
that not all rainfall runoff can be dealt with, resulting in necting individual companies (Barták, Sourek, & Karlicek,
flooding. In Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, an under- 2007) as shown in Fig. 4.
ground car park was combined with a water retention basin. A modern-day example of taking this concept further is
In this way the underground space created was used for both the utility tunnel incorporated into Gujarat International
the storage of cars and water, independently of each other. Finance Tec-City. The tunnel beneath the city measures
When canals and sewer levels become critical, a controlled 7.6 m  6.2 m and runs for 15 km. The tunnel will
overflow to the basin can be created. After levels recede, carry (a) 50 million liters per day of treated water, (b)

Fig. 2. Underground car park under sand dunes, acting as natural sea defenses. Courtesy: BNA Beste Gebouw van het Jaar.
 H. Admiraal, A. Cornaro / Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228 227

Fig. 3. The temple water storage basin beneath Tokyo. Courtesy of Amano Jun-ichi, reproduced under CC BY 3.0.

Fig. 4. Prague, Czech Republic, utility tunnel. Courtesy of Honza Groh, reproduced under CC BY 3.0.

200 000 tons of cooling water, (c) 750 megawatts of power ‘‘It’s a historical fact that humanity started with two basic
supply, and (d) 280 million tons of solid waste (Bentley, concepts for habitation: the cave and the tent. Throughout
2018). history, humans have been building tents on the surface
To end this discussion, we would like to quote from our and continue to do so. We may well find that the chronic
own work: stresses and acute shocks that cities face going into the
228 H. Admiraal, A. Cornaro / Underground Space 5 (2020) 223–228

future require us to start building more caves. In the end, Acknowledgements

forces at the surface might become such that tents can no
longer withstand them, and caves will provide the resilient The authors would like to acknowledge the continuing
habitats for humanity to survive.” (Admiraal & Cornaro, support of the International Tunnelling and Underground
2018) Space Association (ITA). The authors would also like to
recognize the work of the ITA Committee on Underground
Space and the recently launched Activity Group on Urban
5 Conclusions
Resilience.
Urban resilience is an important concept for cities to
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