Responses of cover-collapse sinkholes to groundwater changes: a case study of early warning of soil cave and sinkhole activity on Datansha Island in Guangzhou, China

A reactivated cave system induces rapidly developing cover-collapse sinkholes in Tasmania, Australia

“…This man-made recreational lake was entirely drained by the lowering of the groundwater table by limestone quarrying: as a result cover-collapse sinkholes formed beneath the lake bed and linked the water in the lake to an existing subsurface karst aquifer, which itself was connected to the quarry, causing the lake to drain overnight (Jovanelly, 2014). Similar aquifer drawdown impacts resulting from quarry and mine operations and aquifer over-exploitation have been described in Italy (Parise and Pascali, 2003;Dell'Aringa et al, 2014), China (Jia et al, 2018;Pan et al, 2018), Iran (Heidari et al, 2011;Khanlari et al, 2012) and Belgium (Kaufmann and Quinif, 2002), amongst numerous other examples of this phenomenon in the USA and elsewhere, as reviewed by Langer (2001, p. 15-30). If sinkholes and quarries are legally…”

“…The cover-collapse sinkholes documented during this study are similar to sinkholes developed in other karst areas buried by thick Quaternary overburden deposits that have been impacted as a result of regional water table lowering. As mentioned in the Introduction, there are numerous examples of quarrying or withdrawal of water from aquifers lowering water tables and causing sinkholes to form in surrounding land, due to the removal of buoyant support for sediments or soils above the sediment/limestone contact (Kaufmann and Quinif, 2002;Parise and Pascali, 2003;Heidari et al, 2011;Khanlari et al, 2012;Jovanelly, 2014;Dell'Aringa et al, 2014;Jia et al, 2018;Pan et al, 2018). The process is well-illustrated in the review by Langer (2001, fig.…”

“…Consequently, collapse can be difficult to predict. Before surface collapse occurs, karst voids in limestone bedrock may enlarge and cause erosion of sediment from the base of overlying overburden deposits, so that voids gradually extend towards the surface (Augarde et al, 2003;Kaufmann and Romanov, 2016;Jia et al, 2018). Eventually a void may become so big that the roof of the void cannot support itself and the ground surface suddenly collapses into a vertical or steep-walled sinkhole (Cooley, 2002).…”

“…They may form during floods (Zhou and Lei, 2018) during which water flow and transport capacity in karstic voids may reach a maximum, or after groundwater extraction (Heidari et al, 2011;Khanlari et al, 2012). Water under pressure may liquify clay in overburden deposits above the karst contact, thereby undercutting the ground surface until roof failure occurs (Jia et al, 2018;Soliman et al 2018). Examples of cover-collapse sinkholes forming rapidly after heavy rain have been documented in Europe (Gutiérrez-Santolalla, 2005;Martinotti et al, 2017;Noury et al, 2018;Parise et al, 2018), the US (Hyatt and Jacobs, 1996;Hunt et al, 2013), and in the Mole Creek karst of northern Tasmania (Slee et al, 2019).…”

Development Environments and Factors of Subsidence Dolines

“…Subsidence dolines develop during the material rearrangement and material loss of the cover at sites where secondary porosity is great or increases on the bedrock by which some part of the cover is locally transported into the bedrock. Material reception sites may be the depressions of the bedrock surface (karren), the cavities of the epikarst, the epiphreatic and the phreatic zone as well as the passages and cavities of the cover [18,[29][30][31]. The most common sediment receptor is the epikarst due to its close position to the surface and great secondary porosity.…”