Both are important when looking to develop underground assets as any other important infrastructure, large or small.
They need to be borne in mind at all key stages: when evolving designs; in the midst of opening up the wonders of the ground – and seeing what is actually there; and, in ongoing maintenance and repairs and upkeep.
Diving into details can be an utterly wonderful, immersive experience. There are times, though, for holding the bigger picture, to consider why to get context to decide how. For selecting how is a choice, in truth.
On a small scale, the options of how to solve a design or construction problem may seem only to be about tight time and hard money, in the short-term. Are the options fit for the asset owner’s long-term purpose? For other stakeholders? For society?
In fact, are such longer time frames and their associated needs, held in mind? That is, beyond how an insurer or lawyers may cast an eye upon the choices under consideration? Are longer time frames – owner’s needs, and wider society’s – actively present in engineers’ minds when the small choices on a project are to be made?
Where there is potential for debate, or at least multiple views, then long-term context – or potential for consequences – should not be a sidelined variable.
In this issue there are features that consider bigger pictures: a project that aims to do more than sell energy by helping to keep an electricity grid stable; a review that brings together and maps out a huge range of varied rock mass classifications systems, for better, quicker, comprehension of differences between countries; sustainability considerations are discussed in low carbon technical solutions, in a training setting for young tunnellers; and, for society now and in future, important reflections and discussion on women in tunnelling.
Bigger aims inform the many small choices, along the way.
