Eos, Vol. 73, No.
19, May 12, 1992
FORUM
Groundwater Problems
in Mexico
PAGE 211
Mexico has two kinds of groundwater
problems. The first, which is common to
many nations, includes groundwater contam­
ination, saltwater intrusion, and severe draw­
down in aquifers. The second, which ampli­
fies effects of the physical problems, is a
lack of trained professionals in the hydro-
geologic sciences. For a country with a pop­
ulation of more than 80 million inhabitants,
this is a serious problem.
2
Of the approximately 2 million km of
surface land in Mexico, at least 1.2 million
2
km are of hydrogeologic interest. Almost
50% of the water used in Mexico comes
SECTION NEWS
H Y D R O L O G Y
Editor: W . Berry Lyons, University of Nevada, Mac-
kay School of Mines, Hydrology/Hydrogeology Pro­
gram, Reno, NV 89557; tel. 702-784-6465
Fourth International
Symposium on Land
Subsidence
PAGE 213
Subsidence, or land-surface sinking, is a
phenomenon that occurs in many parts of
the world. Subsidence results from the heavy
withdrawal of groundwater, geothermal flu­
ids, oil, and gas; the extraction of coal, sul­
phur, and other solids through mining; the
hydro-compaction of sediments; oxidation
and shrinkage of organic deposits; the cata­
strophic development of sinkholes in karst
terrain; and other phenomena. Over 150 ar­
eas of contemporary subsidence are known,
some at rates of \0 m in countries such as
Mexico, Japan, and the United States, for
example. More areas of subsidence are likely
to develop in the next few decades due to
the accelerated exploitation of natural re­
sources necessary to meet the demands of
increasing population and industrial devel­
opment in many countries.
Developers, as well as the engineers and
scientists studying and planning industrial
from groundwater. In many areas, such as
the Yucatan peninsula, groundwater is the
only source of water available. Approxi­
mately 340 aquifers have been identified. Of
these, eighty are over-exploited, sixteen have
salt water intrusion problems, ten have con­
tamination problems, and five have land
subsidence problems associated with
groundwater extractions. Drawdowns range
from a few meters to more than one hundred
meters in the past 50 years in areas of north­
ern Mexico.
The number of professionals trained in
hydrogeology is clearly inadequate to solve
the serious groundwater problems that exist
or can be anticipated. According to a survey
conducted by the Asociacion Geohidrologica
Mexicana, less than thirty persons who work
or conduct research in groundwater-related
areas have graduate degrees, and of these,
only eleven have Ph.D.'s—two in hydrogeol­
ogy, and the rest in fields such as mathemat­
ics, geophysics, and hydraulics.
Currently, Mexican students w h o wish to
obtain an advanced degree in hydrogeology
complexes, urban developments, water sup­
ply systems, and natural resource extrac­
tions, need to know about the potential haz­
ards, costs, and socio-environmental impacts
that can result from land subsidence. To
provide a forum for the exchange of such
information between specialists who have
had to deal with problems related to land
subsidence, a series of international sympo­
sia on this topic have been organized since
1969 by the International Association of Hy-
drological Sciences (IAHS) and the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO).
The problems of land subsidence were
included in the list of research projects rec­
ommended by both UNESCO's International
Hydrological Decade (IHD), begun in 1965,
and the International Hydrological Program
(IHP), a continuing UNESCO program begun
in 1975. The land subsidence research needs
stated in IHD/IHP project documents have
led to IAHS/UNESCO sponsorship of the In­
ternational Symposium on Land Subsidence,
held in 1969 in Tokyo, Japan, the Second
International Symposium on Land Subsid­
ence, held in 1976 in Anaheim, Calif., and
the Third International Symposium, held in
1984 in Venice, Italy. All three symposia
have been held in locations with major sub­
sidence problems. Selected papers presented
in the three symposia were published as
IAHS Publications 88, 89, 121, and 151, re­
spectively.
UNESCO continued a subsidence-ori­
ented working group under the IHP as proj­
ect M-3.5(c): Groundwater Assessment and
Environmental Impact due to Over-Develop­
ment—Land Subsidence. This working group
consists of A. Ivan Johnson, chair (USA);
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only have two options: the Engineering
School at the University of Chihuahua or the
Instituto de Geoffsica at the Mexican Na­
tional University. The graduate program at
UNAM has more than fifty students; eleven of
these are in the groundwater program. Two
are Ph.D. candidates, and the rest are M.S.
candidates.
We invite interested hydrogeologists to
either help elucidate some of the problems
that Mexico faces or to conduct research in
Mexico. If you are intersted, contact either
Oscar Escolero, Asociacion Geohidrologica
Mexicana, Nuevo Leon # 2 1 0 , piso 2, Col
Hipodromo Condesa, Mexico City, Mexico,
C P . 06100; fax 525-264-2862; or Luis E.
Marin, Instituto de Geofisica-UNAM, Ciudad
Universitaria, Mexico City, Mexico, C P .
04510; fax 525-550-2486; e-mail stillman
@unamvml.—Oscar Escolero, Asociacion de
geohidrologica Mexicana, and Luis E. Marin,
Instituto de Geofisica, UNAM
Laura Carbognin (Italy), Soki Yamamoto (Ja­
pan), and German Figueroa Vega (Mexico).
As a first initiative of the IHP-IV (1991-1995)
program, a Fourth International Symposium
on Land Subsidence (FISOLS) was held from
May 12 to 17, 1991, in Houston, Tex.—a site
of major subsidence-induced problems.
Along the Houston Ship Channel, mostly pet­
rochemical high-density has caused approxi­
mately 2 m of subsidence due to the mas­
sive use of groundwater by the shipping
industry. Nearby is the Goose Creek Oil
Field, where subsidence amounts to 2 m due
to the heavy pumping of oil. Also near the
channel is the Brownwood Subdivision,
where subsidence from groundwater pump-
age caused nearly 3 m of subsidence, neces­
sitating construction of a levee that formed
an elevated road around several hundred
homes. When hurricane Alicia hit the area in
1983, the resulting storm surge destroyed
over 100 homes in the subsided area.
Because of mankind's continuous heavy
impact on the surface and subsurface envi­
ronment, the problems of land subsidence
have become increasingly critical over the
years since 1969. Therefore, the purpose of
the fourth symposium was to bring together
international land subsidence specialists
from various disciplines to present new re­
search and practices that counter subsid­
ence, and to exchange information on the
cause, effect, control, and remediation of
subsidence. By promoting technology trans­
fer between the various disciplines and
countries represented at the meeting, and by
evaluating the advance of knowledge on
land subsidence since 1984, a path can be
charted for future research.
The fourth symposium was somewhat
different from the others in several aspects. It
was even broader and more interdisciplinary
in coverage than previous symposia. Also, a
number of new mathematical analyses and
modeling techniques useful in predicting the
degree of subsidence that may result from
 Eos, Vol. 73, No. 19, May 12, 1992

AREA SUBSIDENCE, IN METRES climate information recorded in ice cores,

2 4 6 8 10
the International Commission on Snow and
_SjyANNAH J 330 GpORG I A Ice (ICSI) established a working group on
Snow-Atmosphere Chemical Exchange. With
NEW ORLEANS Tso| support from the National Science Founda­
BATON

HOUSTON-GALVESTON
ROUGE JB50

12,000 " |
} LOUISIANA

TEXAS
tion, Division of Polar Programs, the ICSI
working group organized a workshop to de­
velop a science plan for a 3- to 5-year re­
Fig. 1. Magnitude of search effort focused on exchange pro­
LUKE land subsidence due cesses. The workshop will follow the current
to groundwater with­ Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2)
QUEEN CREEK 600
- ARIZONA drawal in the United drilling effort at Summit, Greenland.
STANFIELD 700 States. (Number in Together with the European Greenland
ELOY 1,000 column represents Icecore Program (GRIP), GISP2 will retrieve
area in square kilome­ the longest ice-core record obtainable from
ters.) From UNESCO
LAS VEGAS V A L L E Y 300
] NEVADA
Guidebook to Studies
any site in the Northern Hemisphere. In the
1989 summer season the two coordinated
RAFT RIVER 260] IDAHO
of Land Subsidence drilling projects began recovering their cores
due to Groundwater from the Summit region of Greenland, the
SACRAMENTO VALLEY | 500 Withdrawal, edited by highest and thickest part of the largest gla­
Joseph F. Poland, cier outside of Antarctica. At the end of the
SANTA CLARA V A L L E Y 650
1984. 1991 drilling season, the GISP2 core had
LOS B A N O S - K E T T L E M A N
6,200 reached a depth of 1510 m, covering almost
CITY
the whole Holocene; the GRIP core had
TULARE-WASCO

ARVIN-MARICOPA
3,700

1,800
LANCASTER 1 ,200
SAN J A C I N T O V A L L E Y 10+ L_
certain actions were presented. The program
also showed the potential interrelationships
of subsidence charateristics, methods of
study, and means of remedial work, whether
directly due to withdrawal of fluids or indi­
rectly due to dewatering from certain types
of mining. The broad interdisciplinary ap­
proach required to study and remediate land
subsidence, recognized by many researchers
who have been studying this subject for
years, was well demonstrated at the work­
shop.
Of the sixty-two papers published in the
proceedings, eight discussed subsidence
problems related to groundwater withdrawal,
|
IT CALIFORNIA
Press, Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford,
Oxfordshire, OX10 8BB, England. The Field
Trip Guide Book on Land Subsidence in
Houston, Texas, USA, which contains the
field trip log, trip stop descriptions, and four
papers on oil and groundwater subsidence
studies in the area, is available for $8 (by
surface mail) from A. Ivan Johnson, ALJ Inc.,
7474 Upham Court, Arvada, CO 80003. The
327-page Guidebook to Studies of Land Sub­
sidence Due to Groundwater Withdrawal,
prepared earlier by the UNESCO-IHP Working
Group, is available from the UNESCO Book
Store, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris,
France, for 85 French francs. —A. I. Johnson,
reached a depth of 2300 m, reaching back
into the last glaciation. By no later than
1993, both cores plan to terminate at bed­
rock, approximately 3000 m below the sur­
face of the ice sheet. The resulting record of
snow and inclusion chemistry should extend
back about 200-300 kyr, with possible sea­
sonal time resolution during the last glacia­
tion, surpassing any previous ice-core
record. It has become apparent, however,
that drilling will conclude before sufficient
progress has been made on understanding
the processes of snow-atmosphere exchange
and post-depositional modifications.
There is a broad list of parameters in ice
cores that have been and will be widely
used to describe the evolution of climate in
the past. Each is linked to a specific aspect
of the Earth system. Best well-known are de­
duced temperature variations from the isoto-
1 8

four focused on oil and gas withdrawal, ten IAHS Honorary President pic record ( 5 0 and 8D) in the ice core
were on mining, six were on Earth fissures, [Jouzel et al., 1987], variations in green­
three were on special subsidence phenom­ house gases C 0 [Barnola et al, 1987] and
2

ena related to sinkholes and organic depos­ C H [Chappellaz et al., 1990], and changes
4

its, five were on environmental factors, three

were on coastal and inland flooding, five
were on instrumentation and measurement,
five were on remedial measures, and thirteen
were on theory and modeling. Nearly 200
scientists and engineers from twenty-one
countries and the United States received use­
ful and interesting information from over 100
oral or poster papers presented at the sym­
posium.
Informal invitations to hold the fifth inter­
national symposium in the Netherlands or
China were received during the meeting, and
these offers are being pursued through the
proper channels. The working group will
develop plans to convene the fifth sympo­
sium in 1994 or 1995 in one of these coun­
tries.
The 704-page symposium proceedings,
IAHS Publication No. 200, edited by A. I.
Johnson, is available for $65 from the IAHS
Publications Offices, International Associa­
tion of Hydrological Sciences, do AGU, 2000
Florida Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC,
20009; or from Penny Kisby, Manager, IAHS
The GISP2 Ice Core
and Snow-Atmosphere
Chemical Exchange
PAGE 213
Polar snow and ice are among the most
valuable, or perhaps are the most valuable,
tools for reconstructing past climatic condi­
tions. Glacial-ice records large changes over
time scales ranging from intraannual to gla-
cial-interglacial transitions. Changes in the
ice are thought to largely reflect changes in
atmospheric chemistry and dynamics result­
ing from variations in biogeochemical cy­
cling due to climatic, and other, perturba­
tions [Oeschger and Langway, 1989].
However, two broad classes of pro­
cesses, air-to-snow transfer and post-deposi-
tional modification, combine to filter and
potentially distort atmospheric signals before
they can be preserved in the glacial record
[Neftel, 1991]. Recognizing the critical need
to understand air-snow transfer and post-
depositional modifications to unravel the
in the atmospheric nitrogen and sulfur cy­
cles [Mayewski et al., 1990].
The records of chemical constituents in
the ice core are less straightforward in relat­
ing to past atmospheric conditions. All spe­
cies were part of and transported by the at­
mosphere before being recorded by an ice
cap. It is therefore obvious that variations in
the ice-core parameters have first to be
translated into corresponding variations of
the atmospheric properties before they can
be taken as climate signals. Questions in
interpretation arise when transfer functions
between the atmosphere and ice are not
known and when chemical or exchange pro­
cesses alter the chemical record during the
years after deposition.
In order to benefit most from the multiple
chemical records obtained in the deep-drill­
ing operations at Summit, an integrated re­
search plan for the investigation of transfer
functions was developed during the work­
shop. Many global change findings have
emerged from the interpretation of polar ice
cores without precise information about this

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