Rock Engineering Activity on Underground Construction in Korea

Since the early 1970s, Korea has constructed many large-scale underground structures along with the rapid industrial development. The rock mechanics engineers have accumulated valuable experiences in the areas of underground space technologies. But they still face challenges of technical difficulties in environmental and safety concerns. To discuss those challenges in Korea, a brief description of underground space projects including oil and gas storage, food storage, pumped storage power plant, transportation tunnels and waterway tunnels is presented.