Land subsidence due to groundwater use in US

Many southwestern parts of the United States have been spotted with giant cracks or fissures in the ground. As per reports, these fissures have occurred due to harnessing groundwater indiscriminately over the years. 

The ground is beginning to split open across the states of Arizona, Utah and California. A recent New York Times investigation concluded that these cracks are evidence of a national crisis.

Work on the new Parkview subdivision in Enoch has stopped due to cracks in the ground due to subsidence.
Even though Enoch knew the consequences, he was unable to stop extracting groundwater, and this decision to continue pumping is being repeated across the country in cities and farmland.

Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall in Texas and Louisiana, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. 

In Houston, Texas, Hurricane Harvey's flood severity was exacerbated by land subsidence.

The flooding during Hurricane Harvey resulted primarily from heavy rainfall. 

Multitemporal interferometric processing of large SAR datasets acquired by Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS) and Sentinel-1A/B satellites shows significant pre-cyclone land subsidence, which exacerbates the flood hazard. 

85% of the flooded area subsides at >5 mm/yr, confirming that subsidence affects flood severity.

Severe droughts in California's San Joaquin Valley have significantly reduced surface water flows and increased overexploitation of the aquifer. This situation has led to an increase in the rate of land subsidence.

Subsidence and resulting cracks have affected more than 3,000 square miles in Arizona, including the expanding areas of Phoenix and Tucson.

Hurricane Katrina was, tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August. The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans was significantly worsened by levee failures, which were exacerbated by land subsidence and poor levee design. 

This land subsidence, meaning the sinking of land, was already a problem in New Orleans before the hurricane, and it made the city more vulnerable to storm surges. 

Over 50 breaches occurred in the levee system, leading to widespread flooding of 80% of the city. 

The storm surge, combined with the levees' inability to withstand the pressure, resulted in catastrophic inundation. 

It has long been recognized that New Orleans is subsiding and is therefore susceptible to catastrophic flooding. 

Subsidence map for the city, generated from space-based synthetic-aperture radar measurements, which reveals that parts of New Orleans underwent rapid subsidence in the three years before Hurricane Katrina struck.

Since 1992, research conducted using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) techniques has shown that the maximum vertical deformation rate was about 19 cm.

The subsidence of the aquifer in the western-northwestern part of the Las Vegas Valley exceeded 90 m. This situation, combined with the geotectonic features of the area, led to increased land subsidence.

Based on data from sites of hydrogeological interest, aquifer overexploitation at eight sites exceeded 700 × 10 6 m 3 /year (south and southwestern United States), and at 30 sites it was between 30 × 10 m 3 /year. 6 and 700×10 6 m 3 /year (south, central, and western US).

To solve the problem, local authorities implemented surface water inflow projects in the late 1960s, which reduced the demand for groundwater.

In Arizona, areas near Luke Air Force Base and the town of Eloy experienced subsidence of up to 19 feet.

The Las Vegas Valley is a rapidly growing metropolitan area. Systematic pumping of aquifers began to meet the needs of a growing population.

Recorded vertical displacements in some parts of the Las Vegas Valley have exceeded 2 m compared to 1935 data, causing significant damage to roads, homes and other structures.