Abstract: With the rapid expansion of urban construction, especially the increasing of scale, density and depth of exploitation of underground space, uneven subsidence has occurred in Shanghai, a typical thick Quaternary covering area in coastal areas. Taking Shanghai as an example, the authors have studied the characteristics, mechanisms, and control strategies of land subsidence induced by deep foundation pits dewatering, and summarized the major achievements in recent years. The partition method has been proposed to prevent land subsidence caused by deep foundation pits dewatering. The way of test design, based on in-situ experiments, has been explored to prevent land subsidence induced by deep foundation pits dewatering. The laws of land subsidence caused by deep foundation pits dewatering have been summarized in shallow confined aquifer of Shanghai. Besides, the dual-control model, including the dewatering and groundwater, and the control indexes were proposed. Some preventive measures have been summarized and the control system has been established. The results have been applied in safety management, major municipal engineering construction and operation in major cities, which could provide some reference for other similar areas.