Megalopolitan-scale ground deformation along metro lines in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China, revealed by MT-InSAR

Bochen Zhang, Xianing Liao, Jiayuan Zhang, Siting Xiong, Chisheng Wang, Songbo Wu, Chuanhua Zhu, Jiasong Zhu, Xiaoqiong Qin, Qingquan Li

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

As one of the most densely populated and rapidly growing metropolitan areas worldwide, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China has been developing extensive metro networks to relieve the escalating traffic congestion inner cities and to shorten public transport time inter cities. Metro construction possibly triggers ground deformation, which may result in damage to the tunnel, pipeline, and ground structures. Fast and efficient monitoring ground deformation along metro lines is vital not only to the metro itself but also to these structures. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of ground deformation along 67 metro lines within the GBA, based on multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar interferometry (MT-InSAR) by using Sentinel-1 from March 2017 to February 2022. The results reveal that deformation velocity in this area ranges from –39.4 mm/year to 14.2 mm/year, which is mainly caused by the tunnel excavation, adjacent excavation and construction, and unfavorable geological conditions. Furthermore, risk levels have been evaluated based on the InSAR-derived results with the proposed median absolute deviation heatmap clustering method. The risky area accounts for 16.31% (∼205.24 km2) of the whole study area in the GBA, among which 13.76%, 2.16%, and 0.39% are classified as three risk levels, with mean deformation velocities of –2.2 mm/year, –3.4 mm/year, and –6.5 mm/year, respectively. This study presents a comprehensive megalopolitan-scale ground deformation monitoring, for the first time, along metro lines in six cities of the GBA, which provides important insights into future metro line constructing, operating and planning.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103432
JournalInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
Volume122
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2023

Keywords

  • Ground deformation
  • Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA)
  • Metro system
  • Multi-temporal InSAR
  • Risk assessment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Earth-Surface Processes
  • Computers in Earth Sciences
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Megalopolitan-scale ground deformation along metro lines in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China, revealed by MT-InSAR'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this