DOI: 10.3390/rs18162766 ISSN: 2072-4292

Surface Deformation Monitoring and Subsidence Risk Zonation Along the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Coupling Time-Series InSAR with AHP-FCE

Liyuan Zhao, Miao Zhang, Shunyao Wang, Zhenwei Chen, Guo Zhang, Ruojin Wang, Peipei Liu, Yunxi Luo, Pengcheng Qi, Bo Su, Ziyue Zhang, Zixing Xu, Yutao Liu, Yuying Li, B. Larry Li

The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD-MR) serves as a strategic infrastructure critical to safeguarding water security in Northern China. Traversing complex geographical units, the project is perpetually exposed to long-term risks of land subsidence. Conventional Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) monitoring is hampered by waterbody isolation, causing spatial discontinuities in the retrieved deformation fields; furthermore, relying solely on deformation metrics fails to comprehensively quantify multidimensional risks. To address these issues, this study proposes an integrated assessment framework that couples time-series InSAR observations with the Analytic Hierarchy Process-Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (AHP-FCE) model. To specifically mitigate the challenge of waterbody isolation, we developed a connectivity-aware multiscale down-sampling phase unwrapping strategy. By exploiting cross-canal bridges to construct a spatial connection network, a highly accurate, spatiotemporally continuous deformation field across the entire alignment was successfully reconstructed. Using the derived deformation field as the core dynamic indicator, an AHP-FCE model integrating hydrogeological features and human perturbations was constructed. A complementary evaluation process comprising sensitivity analysis and an internal physical consistency assessment was subsequently implemented. The results demonstrate that (1) the proposed algorithm effectively resolves the spatial discontinuity issue of the cross-canal deformation fields, reducing the deformation-velocity RMSE from 7.9 to 5.7 mm/y, corresponding to an approximately 27.8% reduction in RMSE relative to the traditional Minimum Cost Flow (MCF) method; (2) land subsidence along the alignment exhibits prominent spatial heterogeneity, with the northern Henan and southern Hebei sections identified as very-high-risk zones; and (3) InSAR deformation magnitude and the groundwater elevation indicator emerge as the most influential factors in the modeled risk distribution. Overall, this study expands conventional deformation monitoring into a systematic, quantitative risk assessment framework, thereby providing scientific insights and theoretical support for the early warning of geo-hazards and the smart operation and maintenance of large-scale water diversion projects.

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