Preface
This book reflects the experience of the authors, working in a multidisciplinary team of specialists and scientists on urban geosciences including geology, hydro-geology, hydrogeophysics, river-ecology, and on research projects at the Basel University. Besides the academic activities, the Applied and Environmental Geology (AUG) is in charge of the geological survey of the Cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft.
Modern quantitative earth-sciences can contribute significantly to finding solutions concerning the sustainable use or subsurface resources in urban environments.The approaches we present in this book are mainly problem oriented. This includes the cooperation of specialists from several universities and institutions with different backgrounds worldwide to find solutions to specific problems related to urban environmental questions.
Urban subsurface resources and especially urban groundwater bodies are particularly vulnerable to environmental impacts, and their rational management is of major importance. Therefore, the development of optimization strategies is necessary. Such strategies should consider simultaneously the numerous impacts on urban subsurface resources, such as infrastructure development or groundwater and geothermal subsurface use.
Often, infrastructure development in urban environments and associated alterations in land use only consider the benefits for the improved infrastructure itself and planning largely takes the pragmatic form of engineering for short-term economic objectives. This often leads to adverse effects concerning quantitative and qualitative issues of subsurface resources including groundwater flow regimes, induced natural hazards, and use conflicts in general.
Although legal frameworks for protection of natural resources have continuously been adjusted in the last decades, damages still occur. Until now, the impacts on natural resources were mostly regarded as solitary limited impacts and examinations of the interactions between them, and other aspects such as possible interactions at a regional scale were not attempted.
There are several reasons for this. More attention is paid to purely technological aspects concerning resource management during construction rather than to issues dealing with sustainable resource use as part of our ecosystems. In addition, some projects undertaken under outdated legal frameworks, i.e., some 30 years ago or even longer, would not be approved today because more restrictive laws pertaining to resource use, as well as changed perceptions and policy, now apply.
Currently, our knowledge on subsurface processes is incomplete as concepts for the sustainable use of the urban subsurface are rare. The present legislations and related regulations are confronted with many contradictions which would require a harmonization. These harmonization processes turn out to be very difficult. A discussion on future goals for quantitative and qualitative issues of subsurface resource has just begun. Such present initiatives also include future demands on subsurface resources.
In order to develop strategies for the sustainable use of subsurface resources in urban areas, environmental impact assessments have not only to incorporate above ground vitiations like noise exposure and air pollution, but also to address the negative impacts on subsurface resources including groundwater flow regimes. This book presents some alternative approaches for the implementation of adaptive management.
Adaptive management schemes of environmental systems start with the definition of particular profiles of systems (i.e., water supply). Together with the identification of system profiles, specific targets are defined that lead to overall goals for particular subsurface resources, in the case of groundwater, i.e., the desired long-term development of urban groundwater resources. As the individual targets may interfere with each other and together not necessarily lead to the desired overall goal, techniques that facilitate the comparison of interference must be applied.
This can be accomplished by the development of scenarios and the implementation of equivalence and acceptance criteria.The conceptual approach we propose includes the combination of instruments that allow to adequately identifying influences of the various single impacts on the complete environmental system. Both impacts that only affect the system in its immediate vicinity and impacts with influence on the system on a regional scale are considered.
There are four main elements which are important for a successful management of urban subsurface resources: (1) Efficient management of subsurface data and data mining to provide geological data in 3D; data should be organized in such a way that fast data access is provided; (2) Specific field investigations and experiments to study the relevant processes in urban environments and to provide adequate boundaries for modeling approaches; (3) Development of tools for intelligent analysis of subsurface monitoring data and the setup of geological, hydrogeological, or geotechnical models; and (4) The development and implementation of adaptive management concepts at different scales as a base for the setup of scenario techniques in decision processes.
Based on these elements, comparative studies as well as scenario development are focused on predefined development goals. An important aspect of resource management in urban areas is the availability of geological and hydrological information. Generally, large amounts of data are available that are spread at different institutions. The availability of these dataoften is difficult and its preparation for specific questions time consuming.
This was the main reason to setup a geological database for northwestern Switzerland, consisting of a systematic data collection, an analysis of drill-core data, including the administration of metadata from geological and hydrological reports. The database can be connected to a Geographical Information System (GIS) for 3D structural analysis. Together with further hydrological data, the database represents a unique data source that is suitable for empirical studies and hypothesis testing in the domain of quantitative information fusion of urban geological or hydrological questions.
The book chapters integrate existing and new scientific knowledge, methods, and tools into these new concepts. Such an approach facilitates the implementation of the Water Framework (WFD) and Habitats Directives (HD) as well as a better management of subsurface resources. Main target groups addressed include professional hydrogeologists and geologists, urban planners and water supply engineers, environmental agencies, universities, as well as students in hydrogeology, planning, water supply, and environmental sciences.
The topics illustrated in this book have their origin in projects in the urban region of Basel, northwestern Switzerland. The examples deal with questions which have practical as well as research character. Almost all topics are also relevant for other urban areas and the sustainable use of subsurface resources in general.
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Much appreciated
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