Land Subsidence and Ground Fissures in Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA): Evidence from Quasi-PS InSAR Analysis

Mingliang Gao,Xiaojuan Li,Zheng Chen,Lin Guo,Huili Gong,Chaofan Zhou,Guangyao Duan,Min Shi,Beibei Chen,Zhongyun Ni

doi:10.3390/rs11121466

Abstract

Land subsidence is a global environmental geological hazard caused by natural or human activities. The high spatial resolution and continuous time coverage of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) time series analysis techniques provide data and a basis for the development of methods for the investigation and evolution mechanism study of regional land subsidence. Beijing, the capital city of China, has suffered from land subsidence for decades since it was first recorded in the 1950s. It was reported that uneven ground subsidence and fractures have seriously affected the normal operation of the Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) in recent years before the overhaul of the middle runway in April 2017. In this study, InSAR time series analysis was successfully used to detect the uneven local subsidence and ground fissure activity that has been gradually increasing in BCIA since 2010. A multi-temporal InSAR (MT-InSAR) technique was performed on 63 TerraSAR-X/TanDem-X (TSX/TDX) images acquired between 2010 and 2017, then deformation rate maps and time series for the airport area were generated. Comparisons of deformation rate and displacement time series from InSAR and ground-leveling were carried out in order to evaluate the accuracy of the InSAR-derived measurements. After an integrated analysis of the distribution characteristics of land subsidence, previous research results, and geological data was carried out, we found and located an active ground fissure. Then main cause of the ground fissures was preliminarily discussed. Finally, it can be conducted that InSAR technology can be used to identify and monitor geological processes, such as land subsidence and ground fissure activities, and can provide a scientific approach to better explore and study the cause and formation mechanism of regional subsidence and ground fissures.

Highlights

Land subsidence occurs in over 150 countries all over the world, in densely populated metropolitan areas, such as big cities in China [1,2,3], Japan [4], Italy [5], Mexico [6,7], and Indonesia [8,9], with extremely serious consequences
An advanced interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique, referred to as QPS-InSAR, was performed on TerraSAR-X/TanDem-X data set, spatial and time series measurements were obtained during the period of investigation from 2010 to 2017
After an integrated analysis of the distribution characteristics of land subsidence in Beijing Capital International Airport, previous research results, and geological data, we found and located an active ground fissure

Summary

Introduction

Land subsidence occurs in over 150 countries all over the world, in densely populated metropolitan areas, such as big cities in China [1,2,3], Japan [4], Italy [5], Mexico [6,7], and Indonesia [8,9], with extremely serious consequences. The airport handled more than 1700 flights and 270,000 passengers per day in 2017 Geological hazard such as land subsidence and ground fissure in an airport can lead to damage of ground facilities such as terminals, runways, and electronic equipment and can cause personal security and economic losses [11]. Considering the potential damage that ground fissures can cause to the environment, numerous techniques (e.g., geodetic survey and geophysical exploration technology) have been used to monitor and study the formation mechanism of ground fissures [15,16,17] Geodetic methods, such as leveling and global positioning systems (GPS), tend to focus on deformation monitoring of ground fissures, while geophysical methods are commonly used to detect the location and depth of underground fractures

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