Monitoring and Analysis of Ground Subsidence due to Water Pumping in the Area of Thessaloniki, Hellas

Water pumping is one among several serious causes capable to cause ground subsidence. The pumping of large volumes of water (e.g. for irrigation and water draining purposes) by using ground drillings is very possible to produce ground subsidence, a phenomenon which usually gets worse as water pumping continues. The consequences of such phenomena may be dangerous, especially when the ground subsidence is not smoothly distributed in the problematic area. Starting from the decade of 1950, the public service of water supply of the city of Thessaloniki (O.Y.Th.) established water-pumping stations, in the industrial area of the community of Kalohori (15 Km West of the city of Thessaloniki). The number of these pumping stations was 51 from 1950 to 1980. Nowadays, the number of stations operational on a continuous base is 8. Also, there are more than 700 industrial plants, many of them having their private water drillings. The number of these drillings is estimated to be more than 200. Although the amount of water pumped by O.Y.Th. stations is under continuous monitoring, there is only a rough estimation of pumped water regarding the private water pumping stations