The Subsurface in European Cities and Urban Areas: A General Study proposal for Consideration in Planning Documents

Abstract

The need to include the subsurface in urban studies and planning is no longer questioned.
In recent years research and projects addressing this issue have proliferated, culminating in the
preparation of the COST TU1206 Suburban action, which sets as a target introducing suburban
spaces into the day-to-day management of Europe’s cities. In order for this objective to be realised
it is necessary to strengthen collaboration between, on the one hand, geological institutes and
universities and, on the other, urban planners and decision-makers; and, of course, formulating a
full theoretical agenda that will enable the latest developments in subsoil models and mapping to
be put to good use in local urban-planning departments and by private urban-development actors.
Theoretical analysis is such that it insists on considering the subsurface as a factor with its own
specific attributes, such as watercourses, the original rock composition and its degree of
artificialisation, or chemical disturbance processes brought about by intensive human action on the
land. Yet, at the same time, the underground space also affected by the impact of the growth of
cities, as expressed in the building of infrastructure or the direct occupation of sites near the surface
for housing, parking and shopping. Also of relevance is the presence of abundant archaeological
remains or merely waste found at different levels. All these factors are studied in this paper, which
has been prepared by taking a dual geological and geographical approach, between which dialogue
is so clearly needed with regard to these issues.