Many low-lying river deltas, home to over 500 million people, are under pressure due to land subsidence, with subsidence rates that for this 21st century far outweigh predictions of sea-level rise due to global warming. In the Netherlands, subsidence causes considerable damage to agricultural land, infrastructure and other public and private assets over 5 billion € till 2050. Moreover it gives rise to serious safety issues due to increased flood risks and causes considerable greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions which will further contribute to climate change. In some areas tipping points have already been reached, where current land-use can no longer be maintained without considerable costs, underlining the urgency to take action.
Land subsidence is induced by both natural and human drivers. Human-induced drivers result in relatively high rates of subsidence (typically 0.5-10 cm/yr). Subsidence and GHG-emissions can be mitigated by smart and efficient management strategies regarding e.g. spatial planning, extraction of hydrocarbons and groundwater, groundwater tables, and land-use. However, this requires thorough knowledge on the (interacting) processes causing subsidence, its impacts and possible integrated solutions.
This program is designed to co-create insights that help to effectively mitigate and adapt to subsidence within the Netherlands by making major improvements in measuring and modeling the processes and consequences of subsidence, identifying, developing and critically evaluating control measures and designing governance and legal approaches that facilitate their implementation. Hereto we develop a) new satellite-based technology to measure, attribute and monitor subsidence, b) solid understanding of the interacting multiple processes contributing to total subsidence, c) sophisticated physical and economic numerical models to predict human-induced subsidence rates and impacts, and d) implementation-strategies that go beyond technical measures, to strengthen governance and financing capacities as well as legal frameworks. This fully integrated approach deals with all impacts of land subsidence on society and economy.
