URBAN GEOLOGY 557 URALS See EUROPE: The Urals URBAN GEOLOGY A W Hatheway, Rolla, MO and Big Arm, MT, USA ß 2005, Elsevier Ltd All Rights Reserved Introduction Most of the world’s population lives in relatively crowded conditions in urban areas, affording them immediate contact with all forms of sustenance At the same time, these teeming populations require huge imports of potable water, treatment of sanitary wastes, and export of solid, special, and hazardous wastes, along with a degree of infrastructure that impinges on and relies heavily on the constraints represented by the geological setting Four major geological themes govern the application of geology to human life in cities and urban centres First, although an abundance of regional geological information is applicable to urban development and life, the integration of most of such data is not readily discernible by the majority of the regional population Second, urban life is concentrated such that there is ‘loading’ of the geological environment under various types of ‘footprints’ of engineered structures Third, as the trend of importance of urban life for people continues to expand, ‘megacities’ become the centrepiece of new form of urban geology Last, the concentration of urban populations in coastal regions interfaces with growing concerns over sea-level rise and global climate changes Cities historically have grown and developed around geological core areas where geological conditions were favorable to defense or security of construction Although the form of these settings may seem geographical in nature, it is the underlying geology that has created such conditions The following geological situations and the cities with which they are associated exemplify this: Natural, hard-rock sheltered seaports (Plymouth, England; Hong Kong; San Francisco, California; New York City) Confluences of major rivers (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Mouths of major navigable rivers (Alexandria, Egypt; New Orleans, Louisiana; Para, Brazil) Heads of navigation of major rivers (Minneapolis– St Paul, Minnesota) Confluences of rivers and pre-railroad trails (Paris; Rome) Defensive positions, underpinned by bedrock (Seoul; Rome) Sea-lane confluences for early trade (Singapore; Capetown, South Africa; Boston, Massachusetts) Confluences of pre-railroad trails (Kansas City, Kansas; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Edmonton, Canada) Mouths of mountain passes (Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colorado; Reno, Nevada; Missoula, Montana) Geoscience is a major potential contributor to maintenance of the health and welfare of cities and their populations Successful implementation requires planning parameters for growth and redevelopment of the built environment and assessments of least-impact and least-cost alignments (e.g., the constantly needed improvements for rapid transit to move people around and in and out of cities) Geoscience plays an important role in the location, development, and delivery of potable water supplies and in the effective disposal of wastewater effluents Previously used land must be characterized with respect to toxic contamination and its remediation, and risk from death, injury, and property losses stemming from geological hazards must be mitigated Geological science is critical to understanding the potential for flooding, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground collapse, mass movements, and seismic sea waves in densely populated areas In the twenty-first century, yet another application of geoscience is in the consideration of how certain geological conditions might serve to enhance acts of terrorism