Monitoring and Modeling of Sinkhole-Related Subsidence in West-Central Florida Mapped from InSAR and Surface Observations

Sinkholes in Florida cause millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure each year. Methods of early detection of sinkhole-related subsidence are clearly desirable. We have completed two years of monitoring of selected sinkhole-prone areas in west central Florida with XXX data and analysis with XXX algorithms. Filters for selecting targets with high signal-to-noise ratio and subsidence over this time window (XX-2015-XX-2017) are being used to select sites for ground study. A subset of the buildings with InSAR-detected subsidence indicated show clear structural indications of subsidence in the form of cracks in walls and roofs. Comsol Multiphysics models have been developed to describe subsidence at the rates identified from the InSAR analysis (a few mm/year) and on spatial scales observed from surface observations, including structural deformation of buildings and ground penetrating radar images of subsurface deformation (length scales of meters to tens of meters). These models assume cylindrical symmetry and deformation of elastic and poroelastic layers over a growing sphering void