Ground Subsidence in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region from 1992 to 2014 Revealed by Multiple SAR Stacks

Yonghong Zhang,Hong’An Wu,Chuanguang Zhu,Yonghui Kang

doi:10.3390/rs8080675

Yonghong Zhang, Hong’An Wu + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8080675

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Abstract

The coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei has become a national strategy with Beijing and Tianjin as twin engines driving the regional development. However, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has suffered dramatic ground subsidence during last two to three decades, mainly due to long-term groundwater withdrawal. Although, annual spirit leveling has been conducted routinely in some parts of Beijing and Tianjin, and InSAR technique has also been used to monitor ground subsidence in some local areas of the region, there is a lack of a complete survey of ground subsidence over the whole region. In this paper, we report a research on mapping ground subsidence in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region over a long time span from 1992 to 2014. Three SAR datasets from four satellites are used: ERS-1/2 SAR images from 1992 to 2000, ENVISAT ASAR images from 2003 to 2010, and RADARSAT-2 images from 2012 to 2014. An improved multi-temporal InSAR method, namely “Multiple-master Coherent Target Small-Baseline InSAR” (MCTSB-InSAR), has been developed to process the datasets. A unique feature of MCTSB-InSAR is the adjustment process useful for wide area monitoring which provides an integrated solution for both calibration of InSAR-derived deformation and the harmonization of the deformation estimates from overlapping SAR frames. Three maps of the subsidence rate corresponding to the three periods over the wide Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region are generated, with respective accuracy of 8.7 mm/year (1992–2000), 4.7 mm/year (2003–2010), and 5.4 mm/year (2012–2014) validated by more than 120 leveling measurements. The spatial-temporal characteristics of the development of ground subsidence in Beijing and Tianjin are analyzed. This research represents a first-ever effort on mapping ground subsidence over very large area and over long time span in China. The result is of significance to serve the decision-making on ground subsidence mitigation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Highlights

Beijing, the Capital of China, and Tianjin, one of the four municipalities of China, both play very important roles in the nation’s political and economic framework
This research represents a first-ever effort on mapping ground subsidence over very large area and over long time span in China
The result is of significance to serve the decision-making on ground subsidence mitigation in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Summary

Introduction

The Capital of China, and Tianjin, one of the four municipalities of China, both play very important roles in the nation’s political and economic framework. Due to insufficient rainfall in the North China plain, groundwater has been the main water resources for farmland irrigation, industrial activities, and daily water supply of urban inhabitants since. Long-term over-withdrawal of groundwater has caused continuous and dramatic decline of groundwater level in the aquifer system of this region. 2016, 8, 675 declined 2.7 m every year in Chaoyang district of Beijing from 2001 to 2010 [2]. Continuous pumping of aquifer water triggers large scale ground subsidence across the North China Plain. Ground subsidence has been recognized as the most serious disaster hindering the sustainable development of this region. In 2012, the central government announced a 10-year plan (2012–2020 plan) swore to take measures fighting against ground subsidence in several main plains across the country including the

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