Introduction to GPS geodetic infrastructure for land subsidence monitoring in Houston, Texas, USA

Abstract

Houston, Texas is one of the places that first employed high-accuracy GPS technology for land subsidence monitoring beginning in the late 1980s. Currently, there are over 170 permanent GPS stations located in the Houston metropolitan area. This article summarizes the current GPS geodetic infrastructure in the Houston metropolitan area, which is comprised of three components: a dense GPS network with 170 permanent stations, a stable Houston reference frame (SHRF14), and sophisticated software packages for post positioning processing. Average land subsidence and groundwater-level altitude changes during the past 10 years (2005–2014) also are presented in this paper.