Meeting:Abstract 2013 CSDMS meeting-071
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Land Subsidence at Aquaculture Facilities in the Yellow River Delta, China
[[Image:|300px|right|link=File:]][[CSDMS meeting abstract::Many of the world’s deltas are subsiding [1-4], destabilizing infrastructure, heightening storm surges, inducing groundwater salinization, intensifying river flooding, and accelerating shoreline retreat. Though a half-billion people live on deltas [5], subsidence rates remain poorly constrained, because vertical deformation records from tide gauges, extensometers or GPS devices are rare in deltas, and provide only point measures of ground motion. Moreover, deltas typically experience many concurrent pressures that are difficult to distinguish from one another in practice. These pressures include groundwater pumping, hydrocarbon extraction, sediment compaction, and tectonic or isostatic motion. China’s Yellow River delta is a large, densely populated delta that is experiencing all known drivers of subsidence simultaneously. To examine rates and patterns of ground motion in the delta, we apply Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (D-InSAR) covering the years 2007 - 2011. We find coastal aquaculture and salt production facilities sinking up to 220 mm/y, likely due to groundwater pumping. These rates exceed local (2–5 mm/y) and global average (3.1 mm/y) sea level rise by nearly two orders of magnitude [6,7]. Considering the explosive growth of aquaculture in the last two decades, and the similarity of the Yellow to many other deltas, this result has serious implications for coastal management and sustainability.]]
