Simulation of regional land subsidence in the southern Yangtze Delta

Investigation of the deformation characteristics of individual hydrostratigraphic units is the key to construct a regional land subsidence model. All of 12 hydrostratigraphic units in the study area were discussed throughout. On the basis of the measured data of groundwater level, five kinds of changing patterns of groundwater level were deduced and the relationship between the deformation characteris-tics of aquifer units and the corresponding changing patterns of groundwater level was discussed. The study area is 1.7×104 km2, where the geological condition is complex. The changing patterns of groundwater level the hydrostratigraphic units have experienced vary from site to site and from time to time. Consequently, the deformation characteristics of units are sophisticated. An identical hydros-tratigraphic unit may exhibit different deformation characteristics, such as elasticity, elasto-plasticity, visco-elasticity, and visco-elasto-plasticity, at different sites or during different periods, not to mention the different units. The existing models are difficult to describe the complex visco-elasto-plastic con-stitutive law under the condition of land subsidence. So the Merchant’s model was modified to depict the visco-elasto-plastic behavior of units. Then a three-dimensional flow model with variable parame-ters and a vertical one-dimensional subsidence model were constructed and coupled. The coupled model was applied in simulating land subsidence in the southern Yangtze Delta and a satisfactory re-sult was obtained. The simulation results show that the new coupled model can depict the complex geological conditions and describe the developing process of land subsidence very well in the south-ern Yangtze Delta. The new model can surely be used to predict land subsidence in the future, which is very helpful to taking measurements to control land subsidence.