Evaluation of allowable withdrawn volume of groundwater based on observed data

To control land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal, it is important to estimate allowable withdrawn volume of groundwater in a soft deposit. This technical note presents a simple approach for estimating the allowable withdrawn volume of a deposit. A regression analysis method was used based on measured land subsidence and recorded net withdrawn volume. This approach was proposed based on the principle of soil compression at different effective stresses, i.e. the soil compression is small when the consolidation stress is lower than the yield stress of the deposit, but large when the consolidation stress is higher than the yield stress. Two case studies are presented in this technical paper to demonstrate how to use the simple approach to estimate the allowable withdrawn volume. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013