2011年9月7日，大會秘書組收到日本地域地盤環境研究所主任橋本正先生的確認函，他確認了在研討會主題報告：“市區軟土地下空間工程施工新技術(New Technologies for Underground Construction in Soft Ground of Urban Area)”。

 

    The utilization of underground space becomes a more important issue in megacities of the world in order to build more functional and advanced cities. However, because a lot of underground structures such as lifelines have already been developed in the megacities, a demand for the new underground development increases for a better efficient utilization of shallow and deep underground space. For this reason, it becomes important to establish an underground construction technology that could be applied to large depth and/or the large cross section structure constructions, with little influences on the natural environments of groundwater, the congested structures under or above the ground. Moreover, the geology of megacities in most Asian countries, particularly, consists of soft deposits such as clay, silt, sand and gravel layers with high groundwater table. Therefore, new technologies related to site investigation, design, monitoring for safety management and environmental preservation, groundwater strategy, as well as the soil improvement etc., are necessary. According to these demands, this paper collectively introduces the advanced technology developed in Japan. It is hoped that these technologies can meet the demands to develop new underground constructions in an economic efficient way with little influence on the environment safety in each megacity. The sharing of these new technologies would be useful not only for the megacities in the developed countries but also for the cities in their developing.

    Tadashi Hashimoto, Director of Geo-Research Institute (GRI) in Japan. After obtaining M.Eng from Tokushima University in 1972, He worked for Kyoto University as a research assistant. From 1973 till now, he has been serving continuously in GRI. Throughout his career, he has specialized in underground constructions, providing technology advice involving urban tunnel, mountain tunnel, geotechnical investigation, on-site monitoring, ground water, landslide and etc. He worked actively as technology consultant in metro projects in Osaka, Kobe, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Tokyo Joban Express in Japan. The international consulting projects have included Mass Transit and tunneling in UK, the Netherlands, China, South Korea and Singapore.

    He has been a member of ISRME, and is currently Co-Chair of The Research Committee of Groundwater and Geo-environment in Japan. Now he is also an overseas expert invited by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Construction and Transportation in China, and working as an international advisor for Singapore Land Transport Authority on underground construction in Singapore.