Hydrogeological analysis of land subsidence in the Campanian plain

This paper presents the framework of a research program, theoretical and experimental in nature, issued by a cooperative multidisciplinary group of the Department of Earth Sciences – University of Naples Federico II and of the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (CNR-IREA) National Research Council in Naples. The objective is the analysis of land subsidence phenomena that develop in many areas and are related to over-pumping of groundwater resources by means of advanced technologies to measure surface displacements (inSAR techniques). In the last years many studies showed the great potential of this technique to recognize the hydrodynamic conditions of several strategic regions (Galloway & Hoffmann, 2007). The correlation between the spatial distribution of the surface displacements and the hydrogeological data enables to identify structural and/or lithostratigraphic features that control the groundwater flow (e.g. Bawden et al., 2001; Buckley et al., 2003; Schmidt & Burgmann, 2003) likewise to point out the influence of the natural or man-induced fluctuations of the water level on the temporal spreading of surface deformations (e.g. Hoffmann et al., 2001, 2003; Colesanti et al., 2003; Ferretti et al., 2004), till to evaluate hydrodynamic parameters such .as the hydraulic conductivity and storage coefficient of aquifer systems (Hoffmann et al., 2001, 2003; Halford et al., 2005). In particular, the present paper deals with a sample application of the methodology to analyze both at long-term and short-term the subsidence phenomena and with related review of geological, geotechnical and hydrogeological data on the Campanian Plain (South Italy), in two sectors characterized by different spatial and temporal evolution of groundwater hydrodynamic during the reference period of land subsidence.