Land Subsidence Response to Different Land Use Types and Water Resource Utilization in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, China

Chaofan Zhou,Min Shi,Junjie Zuo,Li Duan,Jin Cao,Beibei Chen,Qun Cao,Huili Gong,Mingliang Gao

doi:10.3390/rs12030457

Abstract

The long-term overexploitation of groundwater leads to serious land subsidence and threatens the safety of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH). In this paper, an interferometric point target analysis (IPTA) with small baseline subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR) technique was used to derive the land subsidence in a typical BTH area from 2012 to 2018 with 126 Radarsat-2 and 184 Sentinel-1 images. The analysis reveals that the average subsidence rate reached 118 mm/year from 2012 to 2018. Eleven subsidence features were identified: Shangzhuang, Beijing Airport, Jinzhan and Heizhuanghu in Beijing, Guangyang and Shengfang in Langfang, Wangqingtuo in Tianjin, Dongguang in Cangzhou, Jingxian and Zaoqiang in Hengshui and Julu in Xingtai. Comparing the different types of land use in subsidence feature areas, the results show that when the land-use type is relatively more complex and superimposed with residential, industrial and agricultural land, the land subsidence is relatively more significant. Moreover, the land subsidence development patterns are different in the BTH areas because of the different methods adopted for their water resource development and utilization, with an imbalance in their economic development levels. Finally, we found that the subsidence changes are consistent with groundwater level changes and there is a lag period between land subsidence and groundwater level changes of approximately two months in Beijing Airport, Jinzhan, Jingxian and Zaoqiang, of three months in Shangzhuang, Heizhuanghu, Guangyang, Wangqingtuo and Dongguang and of four months in Shengfang.

Highlights

Land subsidence, with decreasing land elevation, has become an important environmental geological phenomenon, and a common urban geological disaster in many large cities
interferometric point target analysis (IPTA) is a method developed by the GAMMA Company to acquire time series deformation from point targets that have stable spectral characteristics or high backscattering characteristics for single-look complex (SLC) data
The SBAS-Interferometric Synthetic Aperture radar (InSAR) technique can reduce the effects of spatio–temporal decorrelation by generating interferograms pairs based on a spatio–temporal baseline and the Doppler centroid frequency shift threshold [22]

Summary

Introduction

With decreasing land elevation, has become an important environmental geological phenomenon, and a common urban geological disaster in many large cities. More than 150 cities all over the world have endured land subsidence with rates up to tens of centimeters per year. In China, approximately 100 cities have undergone land subsidence to different degrees, and the total area of subsidence with cumulative subsidence exceeding 200 mm has reached 79,000 km2 [15,16,17]. Land subsidence in North China Plain (NCP), where Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) is located, is most serious in China [18]. Land subsidence in NCP has become one of the most widely distributed geological hazards, especially in BTH [19]. The area of land subsidence in BTH accounts for approximately 90%, and the maximum cumulative subsidence accounts for 1.7 m, 3.4 m, and 2.6 m, respectively [20]

Methods

Results

Conclusion