The pace of urbanisation is already overwhelming many cities, yet globally 60% of the area expected to be urban by 2030 hasn’t been built yet. This brings big challenges and increased pressure on natural resources, space and services. How can we use the urban underground space to create sustainable and resilient cities? The geosciences have an important, but often under-appreciated part to play in securing sustainable global cities and can support urban innovation and city performance, reduce our environmental footprint and ensure we are resilience to natural hazards such as flooding and ground instability.

Urban geoscience research can help unlock the economic potential of the ground in our cities, to demonstrate the value of the services it provides, from provision of water, geothermal energy and building materials through to green infrastructure and human health. At the heart of this approach lies a city-scale ground ‘model’ which allows us to understand and manage the multiple and complimentary uses of the ground to avoid potential conflicts and competition for space and function.

Where the current geoscience approach to city planning is centred on hazards and constraints, the future focus for our cities also be should be one of geological value, opportunity and optimization where the subsurface is the foundation of the city landscape.