Land subsidence in China

Abstract

Land subsidence in China occurs in different regions. It is primarily caused by excessive groundwater withdrawal. Other reasons for the subsidence include the oil, warm groundwater withdrawal and the neotectonic movement. The common characteristics of land subsidence in China are slow, accumulative, irreversible, and other unique properties. The range of subsidence still keeps extending and the accumulative subsidence increasing though some measures taken. Adjustment of the aquifer exploitation practice is a subsidiary way to control land subsidence, but it cannot solve this problem completely. In a specfic way of groundwater changing, the contribution of a certain soil layer to the total subsidence depends on its compressibility and thickness. Besides the elasticity, both cohesive soil layers (aquitards) and sand layers (aquifers) are observed to be plastic and creep when the groundwater level fluctuates in a specific way, which often leads to subsidence delay.