The High Administrative Court of the German state of Schleswig approved the construction of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel between Germany and Denmark.

The court ruled that the land required for the construction of the 1.2 billion-euro Baltic road and railway immersed tube tunnel has been correctly transferred to the Danish project developer Femern. According to a report from World Online, the ruling also stated that work can begin before all land acquisitions are completed.

The 17.6 km Fehmarnbelt tunnel will be the longest tunnel ever, surpassing the 13.5 km Marmaray Tunnel in the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. There will be 10 service elements, each 85.7m long, but wider and taller, and there will be a subfloor to accommodate technology and service equipment. The deepest part of the Fehmarn Belt Trench will be laid with tunnel elements with a depth of 35m. The owners of the land, the shipping companies Scandlines Deutschland and Scandline Bordershop Puttgarden, filed claims for the expropriation earlier and successfully prevented the process.

The Fehmarn belt is a strait between Fehmarn Island in Germany and Roland Island in Denmark. The tunnel will replace the ferry service from Rødby and Puttgarden. The approval process for the project is troubled by environmental issues, especially in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where the southern end of the 18-kilometer immersed tube tunnel will surface. The Danish company Femern is responsible for the construction of the link. A tunnel element manufacturing site and an engineering port were built in Rødbyhavn, and a tunnel entrance was built in Lolland. Keywords: international engineering news, foreign engineering project information

The AR ambøll-Arup-TEC consulting joint venture signed a customer consulting service contract with Femern. The joint venture is also involved in other landmark infrastructure projects, including the Øresund tunnel in Denmark, the urban tunnel in Malmö, Sweden, the Medway tunnel in the United Kingdom, and the underground railway systems in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. COWI is in the process of detailed design of the tunnel-the north tunnel section, the south tunnel section, as well as ramps and entrances. At the same time, SWECO is dealing with the design of dredging and reclamation projects. ÅF-Hansen & Henneberg is implementing the second framework contract to provide technical support services for Femern.Editor/Baohongying