One of the important approaches to promote sustainable development of cities is the development of urban underground space. This approach has several significant benefits, including increasing urban land utilization ratio, expanding urban volume ratio, enhancing urban carrying capacity and alleviating urban diseases such as traffic congestion, environmental pollution, flood disaster and so on. Here, we summarized the main problems and hazards in the urban underground space development process. We also analyzed the current critical issues related to underground and geological structures such as the multi-field coupling mechanism between geological structural elements, the dynamic mechanism of geological structural system, the interaction mechanism between geological and underground structures, the catastrophe and dynamic evolution mechanisms of underground structures, and the disaster prediction and dynamic regulation mechanism of underground space engineering. These critical issues are being examined and need further exploration in the future. Finally, based on the above analyses, we suggested the corresponding creative concepts, which include research on multi-field coupling mechanism, decryption of triggering and evolutionary mechanisms, and establishment of theory of early warning system. This study presents a wide range of research possibilities for future underground space development. © 2019, Editorial Office of Earth Science Frontiers. All right reserved.
