Surface Challenges – underground solutions
Rapid population growth, increased urbanization and expected climate change will require major infrastructure investments, and wide use of underground solutions.
Urbanisation encourage underground solutions
Today more than half of the world’s population lives in cities. The surface urban space is limited available. This means that infrastructure must be planned underground. Accordingly, the use of the underground needs to be carefully and coherently engineered with sustainability in mind.
New infrastructure must take into account, that future tunnels and underground facilities must be used to protect critical infrastructure from the forces of nature and human interference. Installations for oil and gas, information technology and communications, and civil defence are therefore increasingly being located in rock caverns. This ensures their operability even when disaster strikes.
More renewables necessary
Mitigation may be important, but climate solutions are even more so. Norway is today a major supplier in the renewable energy network thanks to the high number of Hydro Electric Power plants. The demand for more green energy is sought-after all over the world and Norway have this expertise.
“Surface challenges – Underground solutions” is more than a slogan; for ITA-AITES and its members it is a challenge and commitment to contribute to sustainable development. The challenges are numerous and the availability of space for necessary infrastructure ends up being the key to good solutions. The underground is at present only marginally utilized. The potential for extended and improved utilization is enormous.
Our publication can be seen in the lint below:
Correlation of the results of the standard beam and EFNARC panel test
