Risk assessment of land subsidence and associated faulting in Mexico City using InSAR

Land subsidence and associated faulting have affected Mexico City (CDMX), Mexico, for more than 100 years. However, despite the extensive research on land subsidence in CDMX, very few investigations focus on characterizing its socioeconomic risk due to land subsidence. In this article, we present Mexico City’s socioeconomic risk map due to land subsidence and associated faulting, combining our data from a land subsidence characterization based on InSAR processing with a socioeconomic vulnerability assessment. Our results show two high subsidence velocity areas. The largest area is located in the northeast sector of CDMX and the neighboring State of Mexico suburbs, where the maximum subsidence rate reaches up to 423 mm/year. We also found that 40.4% of the total cumulative length of land subsidence-associated faults correspond to high 15.6% and very high 24.8% classes of subsidence horizontal gradient. Our results demonstrate a spatial correlation between areas of high subsidence rate and horizontal gradient with high and very high socioeconomic vulnerability zones. Under this scenario, 9% of the urbanized areas, about 70.7 km2, are exposed to high and very high land subsidence socioeconomic risk where approximately 12.6% of the CDMX population lives.