Special Issue on Geohazards in Underground Engineering: Mechanisms, Modelling, Monitoring, and Mitigation

Introduction

Underground engineering is important for urban infrastructure, transport, mining, subsurface energy systems and storage, and geological repositories for waste disposal. However, underground projects face diverse hazards, including rockbursts, natural and induced earthquakes, ground settlement, sinkhole formation, water/gas inrush, and containment failure.

This special issue aims to advance the understanding, modelling, monitoring, forecasting, and mitigation of geohazards in underground engineering. It welcomes laboratory, field, theoretical, numerical, and data-driven studies, as well as engineering case histories. Topics may include tunnel instabilities, fault reactivation, seismic hazards, settlement and collapse, leakage and containment risks, and other hazards associated with civil infrastructure, resource extractions, geothermal energy, carbon sequestration, hydrogen storage, compressed-air energy storage, and nuclear waste disposal.

By bringing together recent advances and practical experience, this special issue will consolidate current knowledge, identify emerging challenges, and support safer, more resilient, and more sustainable use of underground space.

Topics covered

• Mechanisms, modelling, monitoring, forecasting, and mitigation of geohazards in underground engineering
• Rockbursts, coalbursts, mining-induced seismicity, and dynamic failure in underground excavations
• Tunnel and cavern instability, squeezing ground, excavation-induced damage, and support failure
• Fault reactivation, induced seismicity, and earthquake effects on underground structures
• Ground settlement, subsidence, sinkhole formation, and collapse related to underground construction or resource extraction
• Water, mud, and gas inrush in tunnels, mines, caverns, and underground storage systems
• Leakage, sealing, and containment failure in subsurface energy storage, carbon storage, hydrogen storage, compressed-air energy storage, and geological disposal
• Geohazards and geo-environmental risks associated with geothermal energy, CCS, underground energy storage, and nuclear waste repositories
• Coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical processes controlling underground hazards and long-term safety
• Laboratory testing, field monitoring, numerical modelling, physical modelling, data-driven methods, and digital-twin approaches for underground hazard analysis
• Early warning, risk-informed design, hazard prevention, and mitigation strategies for safe and sustainable underground engineering

Important deadlines

• Submission deadline: 1 March 2027
• Publication date: August–October 2027

Submission Instructions

Please read the Guide for Authors on the journal website before submitting. Submission website: https://www.editorialmanager.com/undsp/default.aspx Please select the special issue "VSI: Underground Hazards”

Guest Editors

• Associate Professor Qinghua Lei, Uppsala University, Sweden, Email: qinghua.lei@geo.uu.se
• Professor Víctor Vilarrasa, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain, Email: victor.vilarrasa@csic.es
• Professor Gabriel Walton, Colorado School of Mines, USA, Email: gwalton@mines.edu
• Associate Professor Guangyao Si, UNSW Sydney, Australia, Email: g.si@unsw.edu.au