Poroelastic modeling to assess the effect of water injection for land subsidence mitigation

Abstract

The possible effect of water injection to mitigate land subsidence was studied through numerical simulations based on the theory of poroelasticity. The Kujukuri Plain, Japan, was chosen as a study area. The effect of past injection was evaluated by comparing a model with injection and the one without injection. The calculated results suggested that the past injection played a significant role to reduce land subsidence. For achieving more effective mitigation practices in the future, we proposed to install injection wells in shallower formations. The effect of proposed injection method to mitigate land subsidence from 2014 to 2030 was also investigated. The calculated results show that the proposed method can work similarly by lesser water injection than the past method. The results also indicate that the upper limit of injection rate should be carefully determined to control the pore pressure build-up in the formation to be small enough to avoid formation failure.