Recent countermeasures for land subsidence and groundwater resources in Japan

Several major cities in central Mexico suffer from aquifer depletion and land subsidence driven by overexploitation of groundwater resources to address increasing water demands for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. Ground settlement often combines with surface faulting, fracturing and cracking, causing damage to urban infrastructure, including private properties and public buildings, as well as transport infrastructure and utility networks. These impacts are very common and induce significant economic loss, thus representing a key topic of concern for inhabitants, authorities and stakeholders. This work provides an Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) 2014-2020 survey based on parallel processing of Sentinel-1 IW big data stacks within ESA&#8217;s Geohazards Exploitation Platform (GEP), using hosted on-demand services based on multi-temporal InSAR methods including Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) and Persistent Scatterers Interferometry (PSI). Surface faulting hazard is constrained based on differential settlement observations and the estimation of angular distortions that are produced on urban structures. The assessment of the E-W deformation field and computation of horizontal strain also allows the identification of hogging (tensile strain or extension) and sagging (compression) zones, where building cracks are more likely to develop at the highest and lowest elevations, respectively. Sentinel-1 observations agree with in-situ observations, static GPS surveying and continuous GNSS monitoring data. The distribution of field surveyed faults and fissures compared with maps of angular distortions and strain also enables the identification of areas with potentially yet-unmapped and incipient ground discontinuities. A methodology to embed such information into the process of surface faulting risk assessment for urban infrastructure is proposed and demonstrated for the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City [1], one of the fastest sinking cities globally (up to 40 cm/year subsidence rates), and the state of Aguascalientes [2], where a structurally-controlled fast subsidence process (over 10 cm/year rates) affects the namesake valley and capital city. The value of this research lies in the demonstration that InSAR data and their derived parameters are not only essential to constrain the deformation processes, but can also serve as a direct input into risk assessment to quantify (at least, as a lower bound) the percentage of properties and population at risk, and monitor how this percentage may change as land subsidence evolves.[1] Cigna F., Tapete D. 2021. Present-day land subsidence rates, surface faulting hazard and risk in Mexico City with 2014&#8211;2020 Sentinel-1 IW InSAR. Remote Sens. Environ. 253, 1-19, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2020.112161[2] Cigna F., Tapete D. 2021. Satellite InSAR survey of structurally-controlled land subsidence due to groundwater exploitation in the Aguascalientes Valley, Mexico. Remote Sens. Environ. 254, 1-23, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2020.112254

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Investigation of correlation of the variations in land subsidence (detected by continuous GPS measurements) and methodological data in the surrounding areas of Lake Urmia

Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics ◽

10.5194/npg-19-675-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 19 (6) ◽

pp. 675-683 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

K. Moghtased-Azar ◽

A. Mirzaei ◽

H. R. Nankali ◽

F. Tavakoli

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Salt Lake ◽

Linear Trend ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Time Interval ◽

Gps Measurements ◽

Lake Urmia ◽

North West ◽

Continuous Gps

Abstract. Lake Urmia, a salt lake in the north-west of Iran, plays a valuable role in the environment, wildlife and economy of Iran and the region, but now faces great challenges for survival. The Lake is in immediate and great danger and is rapidly going to become barren desert. As a result, the increasing demands upon groundwater resources due to expanding metropolitan and agricultural areas are a serious challenge in the surrounding regions of Lake Urmia. The continuous GPS measurements around the lake illustrate significant subsidence rate between 2005 and 2009. The objective of this study was to detect and specify the non-linear correlation of land subsidence and temperature activities in the region from 2005 to 2009. For this purpose, the cross wavelet transform (XWT) was carried out between the two types of time series, namely vertical components of GPS measurements and daily temperature time series. The significant common patterns are illustrated in the high period bands from 180–218 days band (~6–7 months) from September 2007 to February 2009. Consequently, the satellite altimetry data confirmed that the maximum rate of linear trend of water variation in the lake from 2005 to 2009, is associated with time interval from September 2007 to February 2009. This event was detected by XWT as a critical interval to be holding the strong correlation between the land subsidence phenomena and surface temperature. Eventually the analysis can be used for modeling and prediction purposes and probably stave off the damage from subsidence phenomena.

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REVIEW OF THE LAND SUBSIDENCE HAZARD IN PEKALONGAN DELTA, CENTRAL JAVA: INSIGHTS FROM THE SUBSURFACE

Rudarsko-geološko-naftni zbornik ◽

10.17794/rgn.2021.4.13 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 36 (4) ◽

pp. 163-176

Author(s):

Dwi Sarah ◽

Eko Soebowo ◽

Nugroho Aji Satriyo

Keyword(s):

Land Subsidence ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Research Direction ◽

Future Research ◽

Land Loss ◽

Subsurface Geology ◽

The North ◽

Central Java ◽

Over Exploitation ◽

Global Threat

Land subsidence is a global threat to coastal areas worldwide, including the North Java coastal area. Of many areas experiencing land subsidence in North Java, the rate of land subsidence in Pekalongan has matched the high subsidence rates usually found in big cities. The rate of land subsidence in Pekalongan far exceeds the sea-level rise, resulting in a looming threat of land loss. The devastating impacts of land subsidence are the manifestation of its subsurface movement. Therefore, it is essential to understand the subsurface to elucidate the mechanism of land subsidence. Previous studies on land subsidence in Pekalongan are mainly related to subsidence rate monitoring and have not elaborated on the subsurface condition. This paper reviews the Pekalongan subsurface geology based on available literature to provide insight into the land subsidence problem. The results revealed that the land subsidence occurs in the recent alluvial plain of Pekalongan, consisting of a 30-70 m thick compressible deposit. Possible mechanisms of land subsidence arise from natural compaction, over-exploitation of confined groundwater, and increased built areas. As the seismicity of the study area is low, tectonic influence on land subsidence is considered negligible. It is expected that the offshore, nearshore, and swamp deposits are still naturally compacting. As the surface water supply is minimal, over-exploitation of groundwater resources from the deltaic and Damar Formation aquifers occurs. In the end, future research direction is proposed to reduce the impacts of the subsidence hazard.

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Optimizing Reduction of Groundwater Discharge to Control Land Subsidence (Case study: Nadjafabad Aquifer)

10.21203/rs.3.rs-475223/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

hamid Kardan moghaddam ◽

Zahra Rahimzadeh kivi ◽

Fatemeh Javadi ◽

Mohammad Heydari

Keyword(s):

Land Subsidence ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Treatment Strategies ◽

Flow Simulation ◽

Maximum Amount ◽

Water Withdrawal ◽

Ground Subsidence ◽

Risk Zoning ◽

Dry Conditions ◽

The Impact

Abstract This study evaluates and predicts the ground subsidence that happens due to the haphazard operation of groundwater resources. Also, several strategies have been developed to control this unpleasant phenomenon. For this purpose, groundwater flow simulation has been conducted using MODFLOW numerical model, and subsidence simulation in Najafabad plain has been done using SUB package under three climatic scenarios for future periods. Examination of the simulation results shows that the amount of land subsidence will increase with the aquifer operation's continuation. The maximum amount of subsidence for 6 years in drought conditions will be 23 cm at the aquifer's outlet. According to the land subsidence results at the aquifer, risk zoning of the aquifer operation was done to develop a solution to reduce the withdrawal of groundwater resources to control subsidence. Therefore, risk zoning was performed using land use and the extent of operation of groundwater resources. The results showed that the north-eastern part of the aquifer has the maximum risk of subsidence. According to the obtained results from subsidence risk zoning, scenarios of reduced water withdrawal from the aquifer in its outlet were developed. The treatment strategies results showed that the maximum amount of subsidence in wet, normal and dry conditions will be 10, 14 and 18 cm, respectively. These results indicate a 14% improvement in the quantitative condition of the aquifer in wet conditions, 10% in normal conditions and 7% in dry conditions in the total aquifer of Najafabad. Improvement of conditions by simulation shows the impact of the importance of optimal utilization of groundwater resources.

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Monitoring groundwater depletion in Iran from space: results from gravity and InSAR observations

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-17885 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Mahmud Haghshenas Haghighi ◽

Mahdi Motagh

Keyword(s):

Spatial Resolution ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Management Practices ◽

Average Rate ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Arid Environment ◽

Ground Subsidence ◽

Groundwater Depletion ◽

Industrial Sectors ◽

Groundwater Consumption

Iran is located in a semi-arid to arid environment and is highly dependent on its groundwater resources for development in its agricultural and industrial sectors. In many aquifers across the country, unsustainable groundwater extraction in the past few decades caused severe groundwater level decline, at locations exceeding 20 m. The country is divided into six major basins. However, neither the water consumption nor renewable water resources are distributed evenly. Quantitative assessment of the groundwater situation in different basins is a piece of crucial information for improving management practices. In this study, we use satellite observations to assess the groundwater situation across Iran.We observe the terrestrial water storage (TWS) from Satellite gravimetry measurements of Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE). These observations provide a country-scale picture of groundwater variations at a coarse spatial resolution of 500 km. In all six basins, TWS declines during the 15 year lifetime of GRACE from 2002 until 2017. In total, the Equivalent Water Height (EWH) declines as much as approximately 10 cm during this period. Although part of this decline is caused by other components such as surface water or soil moisture, groundwater decline is responsible for the major part.The compaction of aquifers resulted from the over-extraction of groundwater can be observed as land subsidence on the surface. We analyze ground subsidence for the whole Iran using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) observations of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite and present the first detailed map of compacting aquifers across the country at a high spatial resolution of 100 m. The average rate of displacement, exceeding 30 cm/yr in some areas, reveals hundreds of aquifers across the country are suffering unsustainable groundwater consumption. The distribution of subsidence basins is significantly correlated with the distribution of agricultural regions.To obtain information on the sustainability of groundwater consumption, we separate the time series of land subsidence into two parts: the short term part as elastic/recoverable component and the long-term part as inelastic/irrecoverable. The ratio between elastic and inelastic elements provides quantitative measurements of aquifer health. Combining the Sentinel-1 subsidence measurements with GRACE observations of groundwater variations gives us new details on how the groundwater is consumed across different basins in the country. The results can have essential implications on the more sustainable management of groundwater resources.

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Improving global land subsidence analysis

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16000 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pablo Ezquerro ◽

Gerardo Herrera-García ◽

Roberto Tomás ◽

Marta Béjar-Pizarro ◽

Juan López-Vinielles ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Subsidence ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Global Climate ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Unconsolidated Sediments ◽

Subsidence Analysis ◽

Global Land ◽

Arid And Semiarid Areas ◽

Calculated Probability ◽

Global Threat

Land subsidence associated with groundwater withdrawal is often an underestimated geological hazard that may produce important damage to buildings and infrastructure, change flood risk in some areas, and cause loss of groundwater storage capacity. In the current framework of global climate change, the increasing agricultural and urban use of groundwater resources is a growing problem, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Because monitoring subsidence in these areas is important for management, but early detection is difficult due to slow displacement rates, we developed global groundwater induced land subsidence probability maps.&#160; Global land subsidence probability was calculated by applying statistical methods to a set of susceptible geographical, environmental and geological properties based on known, documented subsidence affected areas. Highest values of subsidence probability are concentrated over flat areas composed of unconsolidated sediments, and in agricultural or urban areas subject to prolonged dry periods. Including water scarcity and groundwater use data resulted in an estimation of a proxy land subsidence hazard. Calculated probability does not imply that all the high value areas are currently incurring land subsidence, but it can alert policymakers and groundwater managers to areas that have potential exposure to subsidence hazards and warrant monitoring. The complete results of this work are published in Science Policy Forum section under the title &#8220;Mapping the global threat of land subsidence&#8221; DOI: 10.1126/science.abb8549

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Towards aquifer deformation models integrating SAR remote sensing: preliminary land subsidence results using GEP tools

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12806 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Guadalupe Bru ◽

Pablo Ezqerro ◽

Carolina Guardiola-Albert ◽

Marta Béjar-Pizarro ◽

Gerardo Herrera ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Drinking Water ◽

Groundwater Flow ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Surface Deformation ◽

Salt Water ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Groundwater Depletion ◽

Web Tool ◽

Aquifer Systems

Groundwater is a critical resource that provides fresh drinking water to at least 50% of the global population and accounts for 43% of all of the water used for irrigation (Siebert et al., 2010; UNESCO, 2012). A main consequence of groundwater depletion in overexploited aquifers is land subsidence, which ensues other impacts, such as increasing flooding risk (specially in coastal areas), damages to infrastructures and reduction of storage capacity in aquifer systems. Aquifer deformation and groundwater flow models are essential to design sustainable management strategies. In this context, A-DInSAR techniques provide valuable surface displacement data to understand the deformational behaviour of the aquifer and to characterise its properties.RESERVOIR project, which is part of the PRIMA programme supported by the European Union, aims to provide new products and services for a sustainable groundwater management model to be developed and tested in four water-stressed Mediterranean pilot sites. Each of them is representative of a different aquifer system flow scheme. They are located in Italy (coastal aquifer of Comacchio), Spain (Alto Guadalent&#237;n Basin), Turkey (Gediz River Basin) and Jordan (Azraq Wetland Reserve). The water usages of these aquifers are irrigation, drinking water and/or power generation. Each site is prone to different issues such as land subsidence, salt water intrusion, water pollution, over-exploitation and insufficient recharge.One of the primary objectives of the project is the use of advanced satellite-based Earth Observation (EO) techniques for the hydrogeological characterization and their integration into numerical groundwater flow and geomechanical models. This will lead to improve the knowledge about the current capacity to store water and the future response of aquifer systems to natural and human-induced stresses. Free Sentinel-1 SAR acquisitions available at the Copernicus Open Access Hub will be used to perform A-DInSAR processing in representative areas of each pilot site. Additionally, the InSAR processing tools of the Geohazards Exploitation Platform (GEP) funded by the European Space Agency, will be used for a first assessment of ground deformation. In this work we present the preliminary results obtained with Sentinel-1 images using the P-SBAS web tool on GEP (De Luca et al., 2015) at the four pilot sites.&#160;De Luca, C., Cuccu, R., Elefante, S., Zinno, I., Manunta, M., Casola, V., Rivolta, G., Lanari, R., and Casu, F., 2015, An on-demand web tool for the unsupervised retrieval of earth&#8217;s surface deformation from SAR data: The P-SBAS service within the ESA G-POD environment: Remote Sensing, v. 7, no. 11, p. 15630-15650.Siebert, S., Burke, J., Faures, J.-M., Frenken, K., Hoogeveen, J., D&#246;ll, P., and Portmann, F. T., 2010, Groundwater use for irrigation&#8212;a global inventory: Hydrology and earth system sciences, v. 14, no. 10, p. 1863-1880.UNESCO, 2012, World&#8217;s Groundwater Resources Are Suffering from Poor Governance, UNESCO Publishing: Paris, France, UNESCO Publishing.

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Sustainable development and utilization of groundwater resources considering land subsidence in Suzhou, China

Engineering Geology ◽

10.1016/j.enggeo.2011.10.005 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 124 ◽

pp. 77-89 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Xiaoqing Shi ◽

Rui Fang ◽

Jichun Wu ◽

Hongxia Xu ◽

YuanYuan Sun ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Development And Utilization

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Land Subsidence risk maps and InSAR based angular distortion structural vulnerability assessment: an example in Mexico City

Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences ◽

10.5194/piahs-382-583-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 382 ◽

pp. 583-587 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Enrique Fernández-Torres ◽

Enrique Cabral-Cano ◽

Dario Solano-Rojas ◽

Emre Havazli ◽

Luis Salazar-Tlaczani

Keyword(s):

Mexico City ◽

Land Subsidence ◽

Time Window ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Economic Cost ◽

Ground Subsidence ◽

Angular Distortion ◽

Structural Vulnerability ◽

Civil Structures ◽

The City

Abstract. Land subsidence is a phenomenon present in several cities in central Mexico, and results from a combination of groundwater resources' overexploitation and the local stratigraphic nature. Furthermore, subsidence occurs inhomogeneously in space, producing differential vertical displacements, which affect both the natural media, as well as human-built structures. Subsidence associated structural-vulnerability assessments usually rely on direct field measurements to determine parameters such as angular distortion. However, the large areas in which land subsidence occurs (city-scale) in Mexico City hinders a direct quantification of differential displacements for all buildings and structures present in it. A Sentinel-1 based subsidence analysis shows that the highest velocities are located on the eastern sector of the city. This velocity map was used as the basis for a population density weighted land subsidence correlation analysis. Our Land Subsidence Risk assessment indicates that 15.43 % of the population of Mexico City live in intermediate, high and very-high risk zones which corresponds to 1 358 873 inhabitants. Therefore, a significant percentage of Mexico City's population is vulnerable to suffering damage in their housing structures due to land subsidence. Furthermore, the lower income inhabitants share a proportionally greater economic cost due to land subsidence and associated shallow faulting. The structural vulnerability analysis of the civil structures in the city was performed using angular distortion maps derived from the subsidence velocity gradient between October 2014–October 2017 period. These maps indicate that within this time window, ∼12 % of the total urbanized area in Mexico City had already exceeded a 0.002 radian angular distortion threshold; above which damage in civil structures is more likely to occur. In fact, more than 1 million people have already suffered damages in their houses due to the differential ground subsidence and the resulting structural angular distortion. With these results, we can evaluate correspondence between angular distortion map and critical infrastructure of the city, as a result, we found that between 0 % and 12.84 % of these buildings have undergone over 0.002 radian angular distortion.

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