Abstract
Land subsidence in urban areas is a highly significant and globally widespread geological hazard. This type of ground deformation process commonly occurs in rapidly expanding cities due to the combined effects of structural loading from built infrastructures and excessive groundwater withdrawals due to the increasing water demand of growing populations and industries. In this study, we perform a detailed analysis of ongoing subsidence in Bologna (Italy), with respect to historical pum** trends and a 3D geological model of the subsurface. Since the 1960s, the city of Bologna has experienced severe subsidence attributed to the overexploitation of aquifers for civil water use. Ground deformation peaked in the 1970s, with documented maximum rates of approximately 100 mm/year, causing structural and infrastructural damages. Over the years, the subsidence process has been intensively monitored by local authorities, collecting extensive ground displacement measurements employing different and increasingly sophisticated techniques, including topographic levelling and satellite interferometry. Long-term data are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the subsidence process evolution and for calibrating numerical or statistical predictive models. Therefore, we developed a methodology to integrate ground-based and remotely sensed monitoring data and produce cumulative ground displacement time series and maps, capturing the long-term temporal evolution and spatial distribution of the subsidence process, respectively. The long-term deformation field reconstructed consistently aligns with the 3D geological model of the area, and the produced cumulative displacement curves consistently match the pluriannual trends observed in groundwater level and pum** monitoring time series.
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This study was supported by the research grant URGENT — Urban Geology and Geohazards: Engineering geology for safer, resilieNt and smart ciTies funded by the Italian Government (Progetti di Ricerca di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale, PRIN2017, Prot. 2017HPJLPW).
This study was carried out within the RETURN Extended Partnership and received funding from the European Union Next-GenerationEU (National Recovery and Resilience Plan — NRRP, Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.3 — D.D. 1243 2/8/2022, PE0000005.
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Conceptualization: Matteo Berti and Alessandro Zuccarini; data collection and material preparation: Alessandro Zuccarini, Paolo Severi and Serena Giacomelli; methodology: Matteo Berti and Alessandro Zuccarini; formal analysis and investigation: Alessandro Zuccarini and Matteo Berti; writing — original draft preparation: Alessandro Zuccarini; writing — review and editing: Matteo Berti, Serena Giacomelli and Paolo Severi; funding acquisition: Matteo Berti; resources: Matteo Berti; supervision: Matteo Berti. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Zuccarini, A., Giacomelli, S., Severi, P. et al. Long-term spatiotemporal evolution of land subsidence in the urban area of Bologna, Italy. Bull Eng Geol Environ 83, 35 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03517-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03517-5