Economic risk of differential subsidence in Mexico City (2014–2022)

Differential ground subsidence associated with groundwater extraction can damage urban infrastructure and housing, producing important economic risk and losses. This paper assessed the economic risk due to differential subsidence in Mexico City. To obtain the economic risk maps, we applied a three-stage methodology. In the first stage, we computed the cadastral value per city block. In the second stage, we obtained the vertical, horizontal, and differential subsidence velocities for the period 2014–2022 using Sentinel-1 SAR scenes. In the last stage, we combined the products of stages I and II to obtain the city blocks exceeding Mexico City’s Limit States to differential subsidence and the economic risk maps based on two scenarios of typologies. The first scenario consists of masonry construction with 1–2 floors, and the second of constructions with 1–4 floors with steel frames. In the first scenario of economic risk, we obtained that 7.6% of city blocks, 215,000 properties, and 738,000 people are within high and very high-risk categories, representing an economic cost of $10.5 billion USD. In the second risk scenario, we obtained that $2.5 billion USD is the cost of properties with high-risk, exposing 48,000 properties, 169 thousand people, and 2% of city blocks. This paper represents the first time land subsidence is evaluated in Mexico City in economic terms. The obtained results can be useful to local authorities to know the economic impacts of differential land subsidence in the city, which can help to improve land subsidence mitigation strategies in the coming years.