Assessing Land Subsidence-Inducing Factors in the Shandong Province, China, by Using PS-InSAR Measurements

Abstract

Shandong Province (SDP) experienced serious land subsidence from March 2017 to December 2020. Exploring the response relationships between land subsidence and its inducing factors plays an important role in ensuring the development of the economy and residential safety. Firstly, we applied Persistent Scatterers Interferometric Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) technology to 558 Sentinel-1 images to determine the land subsidence in SDP from March 2017 to December 2020. Secondly, we mosaicked the land subsidence monitoring results of five tracks to obtain a land subsidence map covering the whole SDP and validated the land subsidence monitoring results using Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring results and leveling benchmark monitoring results observed in the same period. Finally, the response relationships between the land subsidence and its inducing factors in SDP were analyzed. The findings are as follows: (1) the PS-InSAR outcomes showed that the land subsidence was widely distributed in SDP and that the maximum land subsidence rate was −298.9 mm/year during the study period. (2) The PS-InSAR monitoring results coincide well with the GPS monitoring results and leveling benchmark monitoring results; the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) values between the PS-InSAR monitoring results and the GPS measurement results and leveling benchmark monitoring results were 0.97 and 0.98, respectively. We found that Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (SRCC) values between any two adjacent tracks of the mosaic PS-InSAR monitoring results were greater than 0.95, indicating good consistency. (3) The long-term overexploitation of groundwater in middle and deep aquifers and mining of underground mineral resources are the main inducing factors of land subsidence in SDP when considering this problem on a large geographical scale. Moreover, the type of bridge material is an important inducing factor causing the large variation in the land subsidence of the bridge body within a small geographical range. These findings may provide scientific support for land subsidence control measures in SDP.