Land Subsidence Numerical Simulation of Taiyuan City

In this paper, an integrated model was established for Taiyuan area using the modular finite difference groundwater flow model, MODFLOW (McDonald and Harbaugh, 1988), combined with Interbed Storage Package-1 were adopted to simulate transient groundwater flow and ground consolidation. The simulated results show that subsidence rapidly occurs throughout the area as groundwater over-exploitation continues. Sensitivity analysis indicates that certain hydrogeologic parameters such as inelastic storage coefficient of soil layers significantly affect both the rate and magnitude of consolidation. Land subsidence occurred in places where groundwater was drawn in great volumes, and land subsidence centers matches well with groundwater declining centers, and likewise the rate of land subsidence has positive correlation with the rate of groundwater level decline. In addition, the integrated numerical model was capable of forecasting the regional trend of groundwater level and land subsidence.