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In the Netherlands land subsidence is a continuously ongoing process. Consequently, an increasing number of people and economic assets are exposed to subsidence, damage costs are soaring, and flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. 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. Together with a consortium consisting of universities, research institutes, governmental agencies, public and private partners we have developed a national, multidisciplinary research programme aiming to develop an integrative approach to achieve feasible, legitimate and sustainable solutions for managing the negative societal effects of land subsidence, connecting fundamental research on subsidence processes to socio-economic impact of subsidence and to governance and legal framework design. The 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 will 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 the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land subsidence in the Netherlands is an ongoing process. An increasing number of people and economic assets are exposed to subsidence and damage costs are soaring. In some areas tipping points have already been reached, where current land-use can no longer be maintained without considerable costs. A specific policy focusing on subsidence is lacking. Dealing with the societal impacts of subsidence is mainly the (implicit) responsibility of the public authorities that regulate the drivers of subsidence. As the societal impacts continue to occur and are increasing, discussions arise on the exact drivers of subsidence and responsibilities for the impacts on society. Our study aims to analyse whether and to what extent public decision-making, which controls land subsidence due to groundwater-table lowering and extraction of hydrocarbons and its societal impacts, is organised effectively to reduce these societal impacts, and how the legal framework can be improved to achieve that. By studying the respective legal frameworks of these drivers, we map legal solutions for mitigation of subsidence itself or adaptation to its societal impacts – both eventually aimed at reducing the societal impacts of subsidence. In this paper, we focus on the legal framework of one of these drivers: groundwater-table lowering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though global awareness of land subsidence has increased over recent years, subsidence remains an ongoing and largely unsolved problem, which is exemplified by frequent discoveries of apparently new subsiding areas. This means that for many of these areas there is a continuous and growing need to provide guidance to decision makers on how to tackle this global problem. This paper presents a comprehensive, step-by-step approach to address land subsidence, illustrated by best practise examples from around the world. The approach places emphasis on the long-term sustainability of resources, whose development is related to the subsidence problems. We identified 6 steps, collectively referred to as the 6M approach, that are crucial to tackle subsidence: Measuring, understanding Mechanisms, Modelling, Money, Measures and Monitoring. This paper offers guidance for implementing the 6M approach, and the lessons learned from the real-life examples provide valuable information and inspiration for decision makers and experts to address subsidence. The focus is on subsidence in deltaic and coastal areas where subsidence contributes to relative sea level rise. It is expected that the 6M approach will contribute to lowering the threshold to act on subsidence. The 6M approach is also used as a guiding principle for the thematic subdivision of TISOLS, providing a meaningful linkage between subsidence science and the societal response to subsidence problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the causes and mechanisms of land subsidence is crucial, especially in densely populated coastal plains. In this work, we calculated subsidence rates (SR) in the Po coastal plain, averaged over the last 5.6 and 120 kyr, providing information about land movements on intermediate (10 3 –10 5 years) time scales. The calculation of SR relied upon core-based correlation of two lagoon horizons over tens of km. Subsidence in the last 120 kyr appears to be controlled mainly by the location of buried tectonic structures, which in turn controlled sedimentation rates and location of highly compressible depositional facies. Numerical modelling shows that subsidence in the last 5.6 kyr is mainly due to compaction of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits (uppermost 30 m). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]