Estimating ground surface motion from historical maps

Estimating ground surface motion from historical maps: A case study in the Zuid-Limburg mining area from 1914 till 1974

Lips, T.J.

Van der Marel, H. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Geoscience and Remote Sensing

2016-06-13

This study shows how historical topographic maps of the Zuid-Limburg mining area can be used to estimate the effects of mining activities on vertical ground surface motion. Coal has been the most important energy supplier for the Netherlands from the 19th century until the discovery of the large Slochteren gas field. After 1960, mining of coal was rapidly reduced until the last mine finally shut down in 1974. In the study Na-ijlende gevolgen steenkolenwinning Zuid-Limburg it became clear that the full extent of vertical ground surface subsidence, which happened during the active mining period, was not fully known. Since the available data on ground motion only covers a part of the mining area or is in handwritten of which digitizing would be a gigantic undertaking, the question arose: "is it possible to infer vertical ground motion from historical maps?". The available historical maps, historical measurement techniques, georeferencing, data extraction methods, spatio-temporal modelling, integration of multiple datasets, and the accuracy (uncertainty) of all processing steps were all investigated. The study shows that sampling contourlines from maps is best practiced by sampling along specifically chosen transects. 2D profiles and 3D maps are created from the datasets showing the estimated ground surface motion over the period 1918-1955 and 1955-1977. Overall, subsidence occurred mainly between 1918 – 1955, and much less between 1955 – 1977, which is also what we expected. However, at some locations large variations in estimated height changes occurred as a result of errors made in field measurements and interpolation, as well as changes in the landscape. The profile method showed to have great potential and worked well, but results should be interpreted with great care for these reasons.

mining
historical maps
ground motion
GIS
modelling

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ced3e52f-5912-437c-b47b-d93828fea4cc

2016-06-13

52.381364, 4.635946

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2016 Lips, T.J.