Land subsidence and ground failure associated to groundwater exploitation in the Aguascalientes Valley, México

Abstract

Ground failure associated with land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal is the main geotechnical hazard in the Aguascalientes Valley, causing enormous economic loss by damage to public and private properties, including urban infrastructures. The Aguascalientes Valley forms a tectonic graben flanked by north-to-south trending normal faults, where the hydrologic, hydrogeologic and anthropogenic conditions are favorable for ground deformation. The intensive withdrawal of groundwater has produced a critical decline in potentiometric levels, particularly beneath the Aguascalientes City, where most of the ground failures have occurred. Most of the ground failures observed in this valley are directly linked to irregularities of the bedrock and buried paleo-channels. Currently, the damage caused by ground failures is variable and considerable, even though local government is aware of this problem and has undertaken actions in order to mitigate the ground failure-related damages, for instance: mapping the location of ground failures in the entire valley, carrying out resistivity surveys aimed at detecting incipient ground failures and buried cracks, and carrying out gravimetric surveys for detecting zones in the subsoil with the geologic conditions for the potential development of ground failures.