Monitoring Urban Subsidence in Bucharest City with TerraSAR-X

Kurzfassung

This work focuses on monitoring the ground motion and infrastructure stability in an urban environment, namely in the city of Bucharest. The city is located in the southeast of Romania and covers an urban area of about 285 km2. Due to its position on the banks of Dambovita River and high underground water levels, the risk of subsidence in the area is significant. Moreover, its closeness to Vrancea seismic area increases the risk of seismic induced deformation in the area. Bucharest is a fast developing city with the average construction rate of 8-20% new buildings with respect to the existing ones. Consequently, the civil engineering industry faced new challenges related to the need of having taller buildings with deeper underground levels, a developing network of subway lines and more bridges with large diameter pilars’ foundations. All these new works have an important impact upon the upper ground stability.