Effects of water level rise on the dynamic behavior of land uplift in abandoned mines, Germany

The terrain elevation changes resulting from the rising water level caused by stopping dewatering or flooding in abandoned mines area can damage surface construction or make the surface area useless. Estimation up to 2051 depicts a rise in uplift velocity between 0.5–3.0 mm/year and noticeably a total uplift of up to 300 mm.

This study used the system dynamics approach to identify the variable interaction, analyze the managerial decisions, establish a comprehensive model to consider land uplift's dynamic deformation and provide a mathematical relationship based on the causality relationship loop diagrams. Six sub-model of Casual-Loop Diagrams (CLD) are considered, including the effect of dynamic interaction of groundwater extraction, vertical & horizontal stress, land usage, pumping costs, and the impact of water pollution and effective stress on the land uplift rate for the next 100 years. As a result, increasing the groundwater pollution in abandoned mine areas caused to increase in the land uplift rate. Furthermore, a 2°C rise in the average temperature in the area of study (Wasserprovinz Haus Aden area, Germany) reduces the groundwater level in abandoned mines by about 19%, which causes to decline in the total land uplift by around 4.3%—furthermore, increasing of 10% in rainfall results in about 12% increase in the land uplift rate.

Such CLDs define dynamic interaction between the numerous variables and simulate the uplift trend throughout nonlinear feedback loops, illustrating the result of any managerial decision and regulating the new decisions in case of need.