Analyzing urbanization induced groundwater stress and land deformation using time-series Sentinel-1 datasets applying PSInSAR approach

Shubham Awasthi; Kamal Jain; Sutapa Bhattacharjee; Vivek Gupta; Divyesh Varade; Hemant Singh; Avadh Bihari Narayan; Alessandra Budillon

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157103

Analyzing urbanization induced groundwater stress and land deformation using time-series Sentinel-1 datasets applying PSInSAR approach

Sci Total Environ. 2022 Oct 20:844:157103. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157103. Epub 2022 Jul 8.

Authors

Shubham Awasthi¹, Kamal Jain², Sutapa Bhattacharjee³, Vivek Gupta⁴, Divyesh Varade⁵, Hemant Singh⁶, Avadh Bihari Narayan⁷, Alessandra Budillon⁸

Affiliations

¹ Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. Electronic address: sawasthi@dm.iitr.ac.in.
² Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. Electronic address: kjainfce@iitr.ac.in.
³ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India. Electronic address: bhatt176104109@iitg.ac.in.
⁴ School of Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India. Electronic address: vivekgupta@iitmandi.ac.in.
⁵ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, India. Electronic address: divyesh.varade@iitjammu.ac.in.
⁶ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jammu, India. Electronic address: hemant.singh@iitjammu.ac.in.
⁷ Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. Electronic address: avadhbn@iittp.ac.in.
⁸ Department of Engineering, University of Naples "Parthenope", Naples, Italy. Electronic address: alessandra.budillon@uniparthenope.it.

PMID: 35810885
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157103

Abstract

Urban intensification has taken a serious toll on the groundwater reserves which is one of the primary sources of fresh water on earth. Exploitation of groundwater has exponentially increased over time, especially in urban landscapes, with ever increasing demands to cater the growing population and development processes. This emphasizes on the importance of proper monitoring of the groundwater variations, which is a difficult process for not being directly accessible for physical measurements. Therefore, it is essential to develop advanced innovative indirect methods to help long-term monitoring of groundwater reserves at a relatively higher resolution, so that local level variations and their impact could be studied in case of excessively exploited zones, like cities. Recent studies have linked land-subsidence to over-exploitation of groundwater, which can be critical for urban scenario, which requires longer duration for replenishment. Thus, this study focuses on monitoring of the groundwater variations using time-series Sentinel-1 Interferometric SAR (InSAR) datasets by retrieving land deformation by PsInSAR (Persistent Scatterer Interferometric SAR) technique; applying phase information of permanent scattering candidates. 58 and 60 images were acquired during ascending and descending passes respectively between 9/10/2014 to 2/7/2020 for the study area i.e., Lucknow city (India) and its surroundings. The field measurements of groundwater level for various seasons (pre and post monsoons) were acquired from the Central Groundwater Board, Government of India (CGWB). Besides, Landsat 5 and 8 datasets were utilized to analyze the pattern of urban growth for a 30-year period and predict the near future scenario. In-depth analysis of all the components revealed a direct relationship between land deformation, groundwater variations and urban expansion. A high correlation coefficient of 0.886 was observed between groundwater level variation and the retrieved deformation measured along the groundwater wells along the deformation zones. Therefore, the overall analysis and results indicate that PsInSAR technique has great potential for estimating the groundwater levels and surface deformation at higher resolution and could be easily applied for any other city for continuous assessment.

Keywords: Groundwater monitoring; Land deformation; PSInSAR; Time-Series SAR Interferometry; Urban growth.

MeSH terms

Cities
Environmental Monitoring / methods
Groundwater* / analysis
Time Factors
Urbanization*