Asia City Geoscience Profiles Home

These Asia City Geoscience Profiles are an online resource created by BGS to provide a summary of the geology, hydrogeology and engineering geology of selected cities in Asia. The aim of the profiles is to improve awareness and understanding of geological influences on city development and sustainability, and highlight common opportunities and challenges between cities with similar geological characteristics; and to summarise current understanding of city geology and point the way to more detailed geological information and data.

The profiles focus on lithological and structural geology; hydrogeology; and engineering geology. They do not at present address other geoscience issues, such as landslide, seismic or volcanic hazards.

The Asia City Geoscience Profiles are currently under development, so please excuse any empty or draft pages, and understand that there may be errors that have not yet been identified. Please do return over the coming months to see extended and improved content.

Introduction: Cities and Geology

Where and how cities develop is strongly influenced by the local and surrounding geography but also by their underlying geology. Although it is hidden from sight, the rocks and sediments that underlie a city present all sorts of opportunities for and challenges to the city's sustainable development - and different geologies present different opportunities and challenges.

For example: some cities are built on good aquifers, and have plentiful groundwater resources - but these resources are vulnerable to contamination; some cities are built over coaliferous rocks and have developed extensive networks of mineworkings that can cause surface subsidence and groundwater pollution, but may be a future thermal resource; some cities are built on on strongly consolidated, 'hard' rocks that are easy to excavate for tunnels and other subsurface amenities; others are built on compressible unconsolidated sediments that are prone to subsidence.

If we understand the geology of a city, we can predict many of its geologically-related challenges and opportunities, and can more effectively apply lessons learned in one city to another city with similar geology.

More intro/detail on relevance of geology to cities, etc

Geological Typologies

By putting the geology of individual cities into a wider geological context, it is easier to transfer knowledge gained from dealing with specific geological characteristics in one city, to another with similar geology. In these profiles we have defined a number of broad geological typologies, which are expected to present broadly similar geoscientific risks, challenges and opportunities.

Cities

A list of cities with profiles on this website.

Key Urban Geoscience Issues

A list of urban geoscience issues shared by many Asian cities. Many of the issues are common to specific geological settings. The experiences of managing an issue in one city could help another city with the same geological setting to deal with the same issue.