A collaborative approach for urban underground space development toward sustainable development goals: Critical dimensions and future directions

The utilization of urban underground space (UUS) offers an effective solution to urban problems but may also negatively affect urban development. Therefore, UUS development needs better concerted guidelines to coordinate various urban systems and the multiple components of the underground world. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which should be viewed as important yardsticks for UUS development, do not explicitly mention urban underground space, although many of them are affected by both the positive and negative consequences of its development. To fill this gap, this review lays the foundations of relevant UUS concepts and uses exemplary cases to reveal that 11 out of 17 SDGs can be linked with UUS uses. These linkages also manifest that land administration, integrated planning, architectural design, and construction technology are critical dimensions for increasing the contributions of UUS to the realization of SDGs. To achieve multi-disciplinary synergies among these four critical dimensions, a collaborative approach framework based on spatial data infrastructure is required. Thus, this work provides academics and practitioners with a holistic view of sustainable UUS development.