A new method for subsea tunnel site selection based on environmental bearing capacity

Engineering site selection is an essential and systematic work in the early engineering construction stage. At present, the subsea tunnel site selection mainly depends on manual experience. There is still a lack of subsea tunnel site selection systems based on environmental impact. This study develops a comprehensive site selection evaluation system based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy evaluation method for the subsea tunnel site selection. It is a multi-indicator mathematical model evaluation system. On this basis, the ecological site selection method of the subsea tunnel is further studied, an indicator system for evaluating the environmental carrying capacity of the island is established, and the site selection results of the subsea tunnel based on the environmental indicators are obtained. We compared the site selection results of the two methods. The results show that the conventional method and the ecological site selection method based on environmental indicators can well carry out the site selection of subsea tunnels. The two methods take into account both the overall and local optimum of the subsea tunnel route and organically combine the overall and local objectives. This way provides a reference for the design and construction of the subsea tunnel in the future and points out the direction for the site selection of other large-scale projects with significant environmental impact.