Land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal in the northern Beijing
plain, China
L. Zhu, H. Gong, X. Li, B. Chen
College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University,
Beijing Key Laboratory of Resource Environment and Geographic Information System, Beijing, China
R. Wang
Beijing Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology, Beijing, China
Z. Dai
Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
P. Teatini
Dept. of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering,
University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Beijing is an international metropolis, where over-exploration of water resource makes land subsidence becoming more
and more serious. The related problems cannot be avoided in the coming years because of the giant increase
of population. The aims of this study are to quantify land subsidence over the period 2003 to 2010, grasp
the evolution of the process, and investigate the relation with the triggering factors in the northern area of the
Beijing plain. Various data, including deep compaction from vertical multiple borehole extensometers, land subsidence
from Persistent Scatterer Interferometry and leveling surveys, groundwater levels, hydrogeological setting
from wellbores, and Landsat TM image were collected and effectively used to detect the spatial and
temporal features of land subsidence and its possible relation with groundwater level changes, compressible
layer thickness, and urban development. Results show that land subsidence is unevenly distributed and continuously
increased from 2003 to 2010. The average loss of elevation over the monitoring period amounted to
92.5 mm, with rates up to 52 mm/y. The distribution of the subsidence bowl is only partially consistent with
that of the groundwater depression cone because of the variable thickness of the most compressible fine deposits.
In fact, extensometers reveal that silty-clay layers account for the larger contribution to land subsidence, with the
15 m thick silty-clay layer between 102 and 117 m depth accounting for about 25% of the total subsidence. Finally,
no clear correlation has been observed between the subsidence rates and the increase of the load on the land surface
connected to the impressive urban development. This study represents a first step toward the development
of a physically-based model of the subsidence occurrence to be used for planning remediation strategies in the
northern Beijing plain.
