Geospatial modeling of land subsidence in the south of the Minab watershed using remote sensing and GIS

Minab plain in Hormozgan province has experienced population growth with agricultural development in recent decades. Low rainfall in recent years, successive droughts, and limited surface water resources, irregular irrigation practices in the agricultural sector in the study area, along with inappropriate cultivation patterns, have caused the extraction of water wells in the region. The extraction of these wells and groundwater resources has led to an imbalance in the aquifer in the area and a decline in groundwater levels. The consequences of this trend have caused the creation and expansion of subsidence in the region. This research, by investigating radar, satellite images and using differential radial interferometry, has been used to detect and determine the amount of subsidence in order to investigate the extent of this phenomenon in the study area. In this study, data from the Sentinel-1 refer to the dates 2014 and 2018 were used. The results showed it had 13-centimeter subsidence in the study period. After verifying the results by control points (in September 2018), in order to find the relationship of subsidence with changes in groundwater level, elevation, and slope, a spatial analysis was performed and the correlation of each of these factors with subsidence event density was calculated. Spatial autocorrelation analysis and Moran's index showed that climatic event due to water level changes in the study area was 0.925. The values ​​of 1.89 and 0.06 for standard normal distribution (z) and the p_value respectively, confirm a strong autocorrelation between the studied factors.