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Comment by chomp

Worth adding some context to this study. We've known about subsidence in our area for many many years. The Houston-Galveston subsidence district was created almost 50 years ago by the Texas legislature to regulate groundwater withdrawal and manage subsidence. https://hgsubsidence.org/ It's worth noting that this regulation has drastically slowed subsidence, but not completely halted due to the groundwater problem, and an exploding population.

One of the top priorities of the subsidence district is getting the area onto surface water. That is, 60% reduction of groundwater usage by 2025, and 80% reduction by 2035. There's quite a few huge projects underway at the moment, including a multi-billion dollar expansion of our surface water treatment: https://www.nhcrwa.com/projects/northeast-water-purification...

USGS has a network of sensors that you use to see subsidence here: https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=e5c75a...

Of note is Katy's subsidence, which I believe is from hydrocarbon withdrawals.

I believe what this study does that's new is analyze Sentinel-1A data and correlate it to hotspots in the Houston area, which is actually super cool.

parent chomp 4 years ago

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