Abstract
Abstract. Amsterdam currently has a huge task of assessing and potentially upgrading its quay walls along the historic canals. Before replacement can take place, Amsterdam needs to determine the potential impact the replacement can have on the nearby buildings. The rate of vertical deformation of the adjacent buildings is used as indicator of potential foundation problems. To determine that rate, the current practice is to monitor the buildings by levelling for two years at least. This study shows that application of satellite measurements using Permanent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) could reduce the monitoring period to a few months. The paper describes the statistical procedure that has been applied to levelling and satellite measurements to verify their reliability and determine the rate of vertical deformation of the buildings. The procedure was applied in three case studies. The rates of deformation observed in the InSAR measurements are in good agreement with the rates of deformation observed in the levelling in two of the case studies. The locally optimized InSAR data set with observations in the period 2014–2019 provides an almost 100 % coverage of reliable data points for all buildings in the case studies. More experience will need to be gained in the interpretation of InSAR measurements with respect to vulnerability of the buildings. Also, the procedure may be extended to include analysis of non-linear trends such as second order trends and seasonal effects.
Highlights
The City of Amsterdam is facing the huge task of assessing and potentially replacing 200 km of the quay walls of its charming old inner-city canals
The general Amsterdam InSAR data set hardly has buildings with probability larger than 5 % of the deformation rate exceeding 2 mm yr−1. This may be caused by a large number of non-linear time series that were eliminated in step 4 of the procedure. Both levelling and InSAR measurements indicate that the probability of a deformation rate exceeding 2 mm yr−1 is larger than 5 % for buildings 10, 11 and 12
Optimized PS-InSAR satellite measurements are most suitable for assessing the deformation rate of buildings in the Amsterdam inner-city
Summary
The City of Amsterdam is facing the huge task of assessing and potentially replacing 200 km of the quay walls of its charming old inner-city canals. Soft soils underly the Amsterdam inner-city, causing an average subsidence rate of 2 mm yr−1 and making the adjacent historical buildings susceptible to damage by nearby construction activities. The guideline uses the vertical deformation rate of the buildings as indicator for potential foundation problems. A vertical deformation rate higher than the background subsidence of 2 mm yr−1 is considered as a threshold for potential foundation problems, such as timber decay. If the vertical deformation rate exceeds the threshold value, further investigations of the foundation is required to assess the need for foundation improvement prior to quay wall replacement. The monitoring of the markers should last two years at least to produce a reliable time series of building subsidence.
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