Abstract
Land subsidence affects urban areas worldwide. Sometimes it could be driven by intensive groundwater withdrawal to assure different urban needs and functionalities. Some of these urban areas have a long history of subsidence that covers almost a century. The aim of this paper is to present the evolution of several urban areas affected by land subsidence, the methods used to monitor vertical displacements along the decades in relationship to the groundwater extraction associated to the urban expansion, and the mitigation techniques used for countering the effects of intensive groundwater withdrawal. Even the originally applied subsidence monitoring methods (such as geometric levelling) are still very sensitive, in terms of time consuming, covered area, and financial effort, these methods might be complemented by new methods based on Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR). InSAR methods show also a significant progress during the last decades when considering the subsidence sensed order of magnitude.
Highlights
Land subsidence represents a degradation form generated by natural or anthropogenic causes, characterized by sinking or settling of the land surface [1] which can affect either local or large areas [2]
Several methods were used over time for monitoring land subsidence worldwide, such as precise leveling, extensometry, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) measurements, and Interferometric SAR (InSAR) [7]
GNSS techniques are used for revealing land subsidence, and for validating other subsidence measuring methods, such as those based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) [19],[18]
Summary
Land subsidence represents a degradation form generated by natural or anthropogenic causes, characterized by sinking or settling of the land surface [1] which can affect either local or large areas [2]. One of the anthropogenic land subsidence sources in the urban areas is the intensive groundwater withdrawal to assure different urban needs and functionalities, by causing the compaction of the liable aquifer systems [3]. This comes in the context of rapid population growth and industrial development [4]. The pumped groundwater is used for industrial purposes, for agricultural and green areas irrigations, for water supply, and for underground infrastructures maintenance As usually this land surface degradation occurs at a slow rate, the problem is not too often caught in the field until a visible effect arise [5]. Unless different methods and techniques for land subsidence monitoring and mitigation solutions revealed
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