Numerous quarries, active and abandoned, have been excavated all over Greece. Based on the practices of the past, most of these quarries were excavated close to the construction activity, thus near expanding cities or major transportation axes. The gradual incorporation of the abandoned quarries into the cities generated the need for change of their usage to be environmentally compatible. The land-planning development of the sites without taking into consideration the geotechnical characteristics of the slopes led to the incorrect selection of the new use or to the misplacement of infrastructure. The main purpose of this paper is to present the geotechnical problems that occurred at constructed facilities and to analyse the influence of correct land-planning design on the reduction of rock fall hazard and the cost of slope support measures.

The problems arising from the unsuitable land-planning design of facilities in abandoned quarries are presented by means of case studies from the Athens urban environment. Most of the data are from the case study of the stability problems of the slopes surrounding the infrastructure of the Attiko Alsos Park, constructed in the abandoned quarries of the Turkovounia hill. To highlight that the problems at Attiko Alsos Park are not atypical, two other old quarry sites are briefly reviewed.

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