Underground land values

Very often, underground land values appear to be a missing factor in land economics and planning, both at academic and practitioner level. In general, ignoring such a variable and potentially valuable resource may seriously delay any underground land policy to be undertaken. It can lead the public as well as the private sector to a short-sighted over-consumption of shallow subsurface space and under-consumption of deep underground space. Considering subsurface land values in economic studies of underground projects increases their reliability for the decision-making process. This paper shows a theoretical and empirical way to estimate underground land values, with applications.