An investigation on the mechanism of land subsidence in the northwest of mashhad city, NE Iran

Paper Details

Research Paper 01/09/2014
Views (258) Download (7)
current_issue_feature_image
publication_file

An investigation on the mechanism of land subsidence in the northwest of mashhad city, NE Iran

Gholam Reza Lashkaripour, Mohammad Ghafoori, Mohammad Mosavi Maddah
J. Bio. Env. Sci.5( 3), 321-327, September 2014.
Certificate: JBES 2014 [Generate Certificate]

Abstract

Mashhad city is located in Mashhad Plain in the northeast of Iran. Mashhad plain is one of the most important plain in Khorasan Razavi province. In the last decades, rapid population growth coupled with agricultural expansion has tremendously increased pressure on the groundwater resources in the plain. Large increases in water demand with little recharge have strained the plain groundwater resources resulting with 65 m drawdown of water levels in the past 40 years in some part of the plain. Due to declining of the groundwater levels, digging new wells has been forbidden since 1965. As a result of dropping in groundwater levels, land subsidence appears in some parts of the region. For example, intensive dropping of groundwater level has created cracks and fractures on the land and buildings in Tous area in the northwest of the city. This paper deals with declining of groundwater level and mechanism of land subsidence in this part of the plain. Based on land subsidence data available from Tous permanent GPS stations, the annual rate of land subsidence was measured about 20 cm/yr. This rate of land subsidence is confirmed with the results was obtained by the InSAR(Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) method. The results show that land subsidence in the study area is due to compaction of clay beds (Aquitard layers) within the aquifer systems as a result of a decrease in pore-fluid pressure (ground water decline) and resultant increase in effective stress.

VIEWS 12

Burbey TJ. 2010. Mechanisms for earth fissure formation in heavily pumped basins, Proceeding of the 8th International Symposium on Land Subsidence, Queretaro, Mexico.

Darini G. 2007. Land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal: the case of Bologna, PhD thesis, UniversitaDegliStudi di Cassino.

Dehghani M, ValdanZoj MJ, Rustayi M, Biggs J, Parsons  B,  Wright  T.  2009.  Radar interferometry time series analysis of Mashhad subsidence, Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing37, 147-156.

Dehghani M, ValdanZoj MJ, Rustayi M, Biggs J, Parsons B, Wright T. 2006. The settlement rate determination in the northwest of Mashhad using radar interferometer technique (InSAR).25th Symposium of Geology Sciences.Geological Survey of Iran.

Burbey TJ. 2010. Mechanisms for earth fissure formation in heavily pumped basins, Proceeding of the 8th International Symposium on Land Subsidence, Queretaro, Mexico.

Darini G. 2007. Land subsidence at aquaculture facilities in the Yellow River delta, China, Geophysical Research Letters 40(15), 3898-3902.

Galloway DL, Burbey TJ. 2011. Review: Regional land subsidence accompanying groundwater extraction, Hydrogeology Journal 19, 1459-1486.

Lashkaripour GR, Ghafoori M. 2009. Land subsidence due to groundwater level decline in Neyshabour plain, NE Iran, Regional Conference on GeoEnvironmental and GeoHazard in ASEAN, Malaysia, 208-215 p.

Lixin Y, Feng Z, He X, Shijie C, Wei W, Qiang Y. 2011. Land subsidence in Tianjin, China, Journal of Environmental Earth Science 62, 1151- 1161.

Lofgren BE. 1979. Changes in aquifer-system properties with groundwater depletion, Proceeding of International Conference on Evaluation and Prediction of Land Subsidence, Pensacola, December 1978, American Society of Civil Engineers, 26-46 p.

Mahmoudpour M, Khamehchiyan M, Nikudel, MR, Ghassemi MR. 2013. Characterization of regional land subsidence induced bygroundwater withdrawals in Tehran, Iran, Geopersia 3(2), 49-62.

Motagh M, Djamour Y, Walter TR, Wetzel H, Zschau J, Arabi S. 2007. Land subsidence in Mashhad Valley, northeast Iran: Results from InSAR, levelling and GPS, Geophysical Journal International 168(2),518-526, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.2006.03246.x.

Rahnama MB, Moafi H. 2009. Investigation of land subsidence due to groundwater withdraw in Rafsanjan plain using GIS software, Iran, Arabian Journal of Geosciences 2(3), 241-246.

Rudolph Dl, Frind EO. 1991. Hydraulic response of highly compressible aquitards during consolidation, Water Resources Research 27, 17-30.

Sneed M, Brandt J, Solt M. 2013. Land subsidence along the Delta-Mendota Canal in the northern part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, 2003–10: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 87, 2013–5142 p. http://dx.doi.org/103133/sir20135142.

Solaimani K, Mortazavi M. 2008. Investigation on the land subsidence and its consequence of large groundwater withdrawal in Rafsanjan, Iran, Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences 11(2), 265-269.