With urban tunnel construction growing worldwide, the ability to accurately predict the ground and structural response to tunnelling and the associated risks is now more important than ever before. Engineers are expected to consider all aspects of tunnel engineering in order to safeguard existing infrastructure, by employing field monitoring, physical modelling and numerical analysis in developing a detailed knowledge of multiple soil-structure interactions.

The Geotechnique Symposium in Print took place at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 14th September 2017 to discuss the wider aspects of tunnelling in urban locales. The papers included here bring together important international research presented at the symposium and featured in Geotechnique. Topics of discussion, amongst others, included:

• case studies from Crossrail, CTRL and Barcelona metro projects
• open-face tunnelling effects on non-displacement piles in clay
• influence of building characteristics on tunnelling-induced ground movements
• impact of new tunnel construction on structural performance of existing tunnels.

Tunnelling in the Urban Environment offers practitioners and researchers alike with important coverage of the increasingly complex and varied challenges engineers have to face when constructing tunnels in urban centres.