18th World Conference – Singapore – 2023 : “Underground Space – the Next Frontier”

The 18th Conference of the Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space (ACUUS 2023) was held in Singapore in November 2023. The ACUUS 2023 Conference also combined the 2nd International Conference on the Exploration and Utilisation of Underground Space (EUUS-2), an ACUUS initiative with a focus on urban geology and underground resources. The combined conference will be presented as a hybrid attendance format with the possibility of satellite on-site sessions in other countries outside of Singapore.

ACUUS 2023 was organized by the Society for Rock Mechanics & Engineering Geology, Singapore, and co-organized by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and China University of Mining and Technology, China. The organizers offered both physical and online platforms for international professionals to exchange their experiences and ideas on the use of underground space in urban cities.

The main theme for ACUUS 2023 Singapore is “Underground Space – the Next Frontier”. This theme was chosen to focus on the new opportunities and challenges in underground space use amid a re-focus on exploring and developing the underground space as a strategic resource and part of sustainable development. The new frontier presents unprecedented opportunities for simultaneously improving urban infrastructure, urban livability, and resilience. At the same time, special challenges exist in developing underground space – both from a human design perspective and in terms of complexity, 3D planning, system integration, technical, and life cycle costs. Equally important is the need to move from the creation of underground space as a haphazard, last resort solution to a well-planned, and integrated use of underground space that can serve the needs of society for future generations as well as our own. As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and is faced with the many challenges in climate resilience, ACUUS 2023 Singapore provided a timely opportunity and an excellent forum for engaging discussions and exchanges among planners, designers, engineers, researchers, and policy makers.

The conference included 6 keynotes, 5 young scholar plenary presentations, over 200 oral and poster presentations, 7 technical visits, a panel discussion on “Elevated Thinking, Underground—Exploring Sustainable Subsurface Frontier”, and a satellite session in Xuzhou, China. The conference proceedings include 144 full papers in the Scientific Track and 27 extended abstracts in the Technical Track, which were peer reviewed before acceptance. Over 500 attendees joined the three-day conference.

More information can be found here: https://www.acuus2023.com

The proceedings of the 18th ACUUS Conference have been published in a special volume on “Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering” by Springer. You can download them here

The photogallery of the conference can also be found here