Abstract
Over the past few decades the country of Qatar has been one of the fastest growing economies in the Middle East; it has witnessed a rapid increase in its population, growth of its urban centers, and development of its natural resources. These anthropogenic activities compounded with natural forcings (e.g., climate change) will most likely introduce environmental effects that should be assessed. In this manuscript, we identify and assess one of these effects, namely, ground deformation over the entire country of Qatar. We use the Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) InSAR time series approach in conjunction with ALOS Palsar-1 (January 2007 to March 2011) and Sentinel-1 (March 2017 to December 2019) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) datasets to assess ground deformation and conduct spatial and temporal correlations between the observed deformation with relevant datasets to identify the controlling factors. The findings indicate: (1) the deformation products revealed areas of subsidence and uplift with high vertical velocities of up to 35 mm/yr; (2) the deformation rates were consistent with those extracted from the continuously operating reference GPS stations of Qatar; (3) many inland and coastal sabkhas (salt flats) showed evidence for uplift (up to 35 mm/yr) due to the continuous evaporation of the saline waters within the sabkhas and the deposition of the evaporites in the surficial and near-surficial sabkha sediments; (4) the increased precipitation during Sentinel-1 period compared to the ALOS Palsar-1 period led to a rise in groundwater levels and an increase in the areas occupied by surface water within the sabkhas, which in turn increased the rate of deposition of the evaporitic sediments; (5) high subsidence rates (up to 14 mm/yr) were detected over landfills and dumpsites, caused by mechanical compaction and biochemical processes; and (6) the deformation rates over areas surrounding known sinkhole locations were low (+/−2 mm/yr). We suggest that this study can pave the way to similar countrywide studies over the remaining Arabian Peninsula countries and to the development of a ground motion monitoring system for the entire Arabian Peninsula.
Highlights
2004, increased by some 300% in 2015 (2,404,776), and by 360% (2,715,919) in 2020 [26]. This rapid increase in population, coupled with the implementation of ambitious development plans and projects, was associated with progressive urbanization, land-use/land-cover (LULC) change, and groundwater level variations related to intense groundwater extraction and injection operations
We counted a total of 10 inland and coastal sabkhas of various sizes within the study area, the most prominent of which are the inland sabkha of Dukhan and the coastal sabkhas of Mamlaha, Afjat Wadi Abu Al Ghurban, and Afjat
The above-mentioned observations are consistent with the following hypothesis: the increased precipitation during wet periods leads to a rise in groundwater levels to surface or near-surface levels, an increase in areas occupied by surface water within sabkhas, which in turn increases the rate of deposition of surficial evaporitic sediments
Summary
This rapid increase in population, coupled with the implementation of ambitious development plans and projects, was associated with progressive urbanization, land-use/land-cover (LULC) change, and groundwater level variations related to intense groundwater extraction and injection operations These anthropogenic activities compounded with natural forcings (e.g., climate change) will most likely introduce environmental effects that should be assessed. 2017 to December 2019) over the entire country; (2) the progression of deformation through time by comparing the recent/ongoing deformation over the examined period to earlier deformation (January 2007 to March 2011) that was extracted from Advanced Land Observation Satellite ALOS Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (Palsar-1) data; and (3) the factors controlling the ongoing and earlier deformation by conducting spatial correlation of the observed deformation with static (geological and LULC maps, distribution of sinkholes and dumpsites) and temporal datasets (high resolution optical satellite imagery, precipitation data, groundwater levels, surface water area within the sabkhas, and digital elevation models [DEMs]). Monitoring the land deformation associated with natural and anthropogenic factors can assist in the identification and implementation of appropriate remedial processes in a timely fashion and could serve as a replicable model in similar settings worldwide
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