Systems approaches to urban underground space planning and management – A review

The necessity to recognize the subsurface or underground and all its current and potential uses as part of our urban environment, to integrate this into urban planning and governance, and to foster conscious allocation of subsurface space has been increasingly recognized over the last century. At the same time, systems thinking as a ‘buzz-word’ has gained relevance for approaching complex problem areas in all kinds of disciplines including those preoccupied with the subsurface.