Effects of change of use of land on an aquifer in a tectonically active region

Simón E Carranco-Lozada,Penélope López-Quiroz,José A Ramos-Leal,Cristina Noyola-Medrano,Janete Moran-Ramírez,José J Aranda-Gómez,Briseida López-Álvarez

doi:10.4236/ns.2013.52a038

Abstract

This paper shows the effects caused by the combination of two factors: an anthropic factor and one natural. The leading causes of imbalance in the subsoil due to drawdown of the aquifer is reflected on the surface with the appearance of cracks on ground, then came the lateral and vertical movements called faulting. This geological phenomenon is due to a pattern of orientation is associated with a regional fault system, lateral movement is almost imperceptible but the vertical displacement becomes important because it is the most conspicuous and be responsible for the damage caused to the urban infrastructure, vertical faulting is related to the drawdown generated by intense extraction of groundwater. The demand for groundwater, increasing year by year in the past four decades because of the change in land use, the most significant change was the shift from rain feed crop to irrigated crop agriculture, this change in land use occurred on Celaya’s Valley between year period 1976-2009 was quantified by use of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS).

Highlights

In the case of land use changes, remote sensing is a valuable tool of management of spatial information and its usefulness has been demonstrated in many parts of the world [1]
The direction taken for the uprising was East-West that is almost perpendicular to the train of failure of orientation NNW-SSE of Taxco-San Miguel de Allende fault system
The stroke of the sections took place east of the city on faults that cross this part, South section was drawn on the Mercado de Abastos failures and La Corona, and North sections were on La Corona fault and the fault Universidad Pedagógica (Figure 8)

Summary

Introduction

In the case of land use changes, remote sensing is a valuable tool of management of spatial information and its usefulness has been demonstrated in many parts of the world [1].In many regions agriculture is considered as the main activity. For the development of agricultural areas should have three characteristics: proximity to rivers or lakes, settled in vast plains and having fertile lands. Under this context, agriculture in Central Mexico, in the study area, was initially developed in the Valley of Santiago. Subsequent studies of regional geology, showed that a portion of the Valley of Celaya was affected by fault Taxco-San Miguel de Allende System [5,6]. This system of faults with NNW-SSE orientation crosses cities of Taxco, Toluca, Celaya, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi. Much has been the speculation on sinking of the Celaya region processes relating to the increase of the extraction of underground water for agricultural purposes

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