Observing Land Subsidence and Revealing the Factors That Influence It Using a Multi-Sensor Approach in Yunlin County, Taiwan

Remote Sensing

Wei-Chen Hsu⁴  Hung-Cheng Chang¹  Kuan-Tsung Chang²  En-Kai Lin¹  Jin-King Liu¹  Yuei-An Liou³  Richard Gloaguen⁵  Ioannis Gitas⁵  Dale A. Quattrochi⁵ 

[1] LIDAR Technology Co., Ltd., 13F-3, No.32, Gaotie 2nd Rd., Zhubei City, Hsinchu 302, Taiwan; E-Mails:;Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Informatics, Ming Hsin University of Science and Technology, No.1, Xinxing Rd., Xinfeng, Hsinchu 304, Taiwan; E-Mail:;Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, No.300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli, Taoyuan 320, Taiwan;Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, No. 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan; E-Mail:;Department of Civil Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, No. 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan; E-Mail

关键词: land subsidence;    groundwater;    leveling;    Global Positioning System (GPS);    monitoring well;    PS-InSAR;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70608202

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Land subsidence is a worldwide problem that is typically caused by human activities, primarily the removal of groundwater. In Western Taiwan, groundwater has been pumped for industrial, residential, agricultural, and aquacultural uses for over 40 years. In this study, a multisensor monitoring system comprising GPS stations, leveling surveys, monitoring wells, and Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) was employed to monitor land subsidence in Western Taiwan. The results indicate that land subsidence in Yunlin County was mainly affected by the compaction of subsurface soils and over-pumping of groundwater from deep soils. The study area comprised western foothills, characterized by sediments containing predominantly gravel, and coastal areas, where clay was predominant. The subsidence in coastal areas was more severe than that in the western foothills, as a result of groundwater removal. An additional factor affecting subsidence was the compaction of deep layers caused by deep groundwater removal and the deep-layer compaction was difficult to recover. Based on multisensor monitoring results, severe subsidence is mainly affected by compaction of subsurface soils, over-pumping of groundwater from deep soils, and deep soil compaction.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.