Research On Qingdao Urban Underground Pipeline Management

Being a crucial part of urban infrastructure, underground pipelines are responsible forenergy transmission, message delivery, flood mitigation as well as waste discharge. Theyfunction in city like blood vessels and nerves do in a human body, thus always beingreferred as lifelines of a city. Due to the fast development in Qingdao, underground spaceresource is becoming increasingly precious. Pipelines are getting much more in quantityand more complicated in structure. For the purpose of effective use of underground spaceand to avoid pipeline accidents, it is an urgent task to plan, build and manage undergroundpipelines scientifically, by which means resource sharing and city functioning efficientlycan be realized.Many cities in our country have made great efforts to study the undergroundpipelines, yet none of them has made it to monitor the whole process of the realization ofthem. In this paper, we focus on the general and unified management of the undergroundpipelines in Qingdao which consist of eight different types. The background andsignificance of underground pipelines management are illustrated based on their spatialdistribution features and different roles in urban management. The main content of thestudy of underground pipelines management is organized into four segments: institutionalsetting, laws and regulations construction, management modes choosing and managementtechnologies using. Through the analysis of present documents, empirical researches aswell as the applications of management knowledge including urban management, dataanalysis and public management, the status of the underground pipelines in Qingdao isinvestigated systemically. Several issues are revealed, such as the lack of relevant laws,the cross dislocation of administration, the chaos in management functions as well as thelack of effective maintenance. Drawing from mature experiences of underground pipelinesmanagement abroad, we try to refine the relevant laws and regulations, to reinforce administration and to improve the level of maintenance. Countermeasures regarding to thespecific circumstance in Qingdao are developed for the purpose of effective managementof underground pipelines so that finally, scientific and orderly management ofunderground pipelines can be achieved.