Investigating mining-induced surface subsidence and potential damages based on SBAS-InSAR monitoring and GIS techniques: a case study

Surface subsidence threatens the structural stability of ground facilities located in mining-induced subsidence areas. Clarifying and evaluating the influence of surface subsidence can inform the construction and maintenance of various ground facilities, such as buildings, roads, and bridges. In this paper, we investigated mining-induced surface subsidence and areas of potential damage in Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, by exploiting small-baseline set interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SBAS-InSAR) monitoring and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. More specifically, we first investigated the distributions of subsidence areas and subsidence rates in Yangquan City from June 16th, 2016, to December 1st, 2016, by exploiting SBAS-InSAR monitoring. We then classified ground facilities, such as buildings, highways and railways, and identified their distributions using spatial analysis using GIS. Finally, we integrated the results of the two techniques to evaluate the potential damages induced by surface subsidence for various ground facilities. We found that, overall, (1) surface subsidence has seriously developed in the Yangquan Mine and (2) some of the subsidence areas exist in facilities with high-level restrictions, such as high-rise buildings, highways, and railways, which may cause potential damage. Our work presented in this paper could be referred to and applied to other similar cases.