Earth fissures in Jiangsu Province, China have caused serious damages to properties, farmlands and infrastructures, and adversely affected the local or regional economic development. Under the geological and environmental background in Jiangsu Province, this paper presents the earth fissures caused by excessive groundwater withdrawal and coupled by distinctive geological structures, such as Ancient Yellow River Fault in Xuzhou karst area, and Ancient Yangtze River Course and bedrock hills in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou area. Although all the earth fissures are triggered by groundwater exploitation, the characteristics are strongly affected by the specific geological and hydrogeological settings. In particular, in the water-thirsty Xuzhou City, the cone of depression caused by groundwater extraction enlarged nearly 20 times and the piezometric head of groundwater declined 17 m over a decade. As groundwater is extracted from the shallowly buried karst strata in the Ancient Yellow River Fault zone, the development of earth fissures is highly associated with the development of karstic cavities and sinkholes and their distribution is controlled by the Ancient Yellow River Fault with all the 17 sinkholes on the fault. On the other hand, in the rapidly developing Southern Jiangsu Province, groundwater is mainly pumped from the second confined aquifer in the Quaternary, which is distributed neither homogeneously nor isotropically. The second confined aquifer comprises more than 50 m thick sand over the Ancient Yangtze River Course, but this layer may completely miss on the riverbank and bedrock hills. With a typical drawdown rate of 4 m to 6 m per annum, the piezometric head of groundwater in the second confined aquifer has declined 76 m at Maocunyuan since 1970s and 40 m at Changjing since mid-1980s, and a large land subsidence, e.g. 1 100 mm at Maocunyuan, is triggered. Coupled with the dramatic change of the bedrock topography that was revealed through traditional geological drilling and modern seismic reflection methods, the geological-structure-controlled differential settlement and earth fissures are phenomenal in this area.
Earth fissures are a geohazard in Jiangsu Province, China. They can be caused by earthquakes and active faults, underground mining, groundwater extraction and landslides. In order to establish a provincial rehabilitation plan in Jiangsu, a range of monitoring programs, surveys, geological investigations and modeling have been implemented or planned. One of the focuses of the project is the land subsidence and earth fissures caused by excessive groundwater withdrawal in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou (Su-Xi-Chang) area, southern Jiangsu Province. Hetang earth fissure within the Su-Xi-Chang area was first reported in 1995 and a series of investigation has been conducted since then. The site investigations and geophysical survey in 1997 have recognized the causative factor as the excessive groundwater drawdown coupled by the underlying bedrock ridge. An open trench excavation in 2007 and a plane strain analysis suggest that Hetang earth fissures may have cracked from the bedrock ridge to ground surface. Geological drilling in 2007 has further confirmed the existence and configuration of the ridge and extracted soil samples for laboratory tests to obtain soil parameters for numerical analyses and modeling of land subsidence and earth fissures in the Su-Xi-Chang area, Jiangsu, China. The laboratory tests are currently in progress and the result of numerical analyses and modeling is expected to be presented in the near future.
Jiangyin County is in the infamous SuXi-Chang land subsidence area caused by excessive groundwater withdrawal in Jiangsu province, China. The maximum accumulated land subsidence reached 1,310 mm near the centre of the subsiding trough in 2006 in southern Jiangyin, and earth fissures of significant vertical offsets have been observed at Changjing, Hetang and Wenlin which form an arc towards the subsidence trough. An ancient Yangtze River course is found underlying and passing through the depression in southern Jiangyin, forming a local basin surrounded by outcropped bedrock ridges in the north and south. The Quaternary stratigraphy demonstrates significant heterogeneities in the basin; the second confined aquifer is much thicker and deeper and encapsulated inside the basin and absent above the ridges. The development of earth fissures along the ChangjingHetang-Wenlin arc might be a combination of an inward rotation of sediments due to a large differential subsidence, an inward movement driven by seepage force and a steeper slope along the south-eastern shoulder of the basin that facilitates the development of horizontal tensile strain and/ or shear strain necessary for fissuring. The land subsidence has slowed down and no new earth fissure zone has occurred in the area after the banning of deep groundwater extraction was enacted in 2001.
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