On the observational method for groundwater control in the Northern Link tunnel project, Stockholm, Sweden

For tunnelling in rock in Sweden, the public authorities usually set stringent requirements on low groundwater inflow to the tunnel, to minimise the risk of building settlement and the environmental impact. To improve this groundwater control, the potential application of the observational method in this matter was studied. A comparison was made between the actual implementation of groundwater control in the Northern Link road tunnel project in Stockholm and the definition of the observational method in Eurocode 7. The results showed that the groundwater control in the Northern Link project mainly agreed with the Eurocode. The significance of the deviations was discussed, and it was concluded that adopting the observational method for groundwater control so that it complied with Eurocode 7 would mostly entail simply a formalisation of today's procedures.