Abstract:

 Hong Kong is a harbor city with a hilly terrain and scarce land resource. However, its massive hard crystalline igneous rocky terrain offers a unique opportunity to develop caverns and tunnels. The use of underground space has been initiated in Hong Kong since 1970s and 1980s in order to meet the need of urban developments. Since then, the governmental departments have conducted a series of feasibility studies and have issued legislative guidelines. An administrative system for underground development has been established in Hong Kong. In this paper, the research, planning, development, management and legislation of underground space in Hong Kong are briefly discussed with some engineering examples.