World Tunnel Congress 2017

June 09 - June 15, 2017
Edvard Griegs plass 1, 5015 Bergen, Norway

WTC 2017: “SURFACE CHALLENGES, UNDERGROUND SOLUTIONS”

Today, 54% of the world’s population live in cities, a figure which is expected to reach 66% by 2050 and 85% in 2100, according to the OCDE. The 21st Century is uncontestably the “metropolitan century”, but behind this label hides major changes and phenomena which will have direct consequences on both the environment and on populations.

All major cities around the world have surface challenges to take up, particularly environmental ones, by improving their level of resilience when confronted with various stakes such as reducing the carbon footprint in big western cities arising from a combination of a lack of modernization of public transport and the excessive usage of individual modes of urban mobility. In developing countries, these challenges can manifest themselves in other forms, like the urgent need to develop basic infrastructures such as access to drinking water (an estimated 240 million people will remain without access to drinking water by 2050), or access to adequate sewage or electricity.

For several years, the ITA has defended and promoted the use of underground space as levers for implementing new policies for urban development within a sustainable perspective. Thinking underground implies to change one’s perspective of the world around. It offers a new dimension to imagine a different urban paradigm, which could consist in living in a four-dimension world, where tunnels and underground spaces could offer new opportunities for transport, energy storage…

Every year, the whole industry of underground activities gathers to share information and latest innovations for the WTC in order to think and make new solutions emerge.