Informative Study of UT Scholars Published in "Science of the Total Environment"

Hediyeh Mirzayi, UT Public Relations Officer, has carried out an interview with Mehdi Bagheri, a UT master’s graduate in Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering, about land subsidence in Iran and many other countries around the world, as well as the approaches adopted in the study.  

According to Mr. Bagheri, land subsidence is currently a major global challenge. Anthropogenic factors and land use conversion are the primary causes of land subsidence around the globe.

Mr. Bagheri further explained that in their study, they found a direct correlation between groundwater withdrawal and land subsidence rate. 

Mr. Bagheri maintained that land subsidence poses a threat with dire social, economic, and environmental consequences and can, therefore, detrimentally affect various aspects of human life. Such densely populated urban areas as California, Jakarta, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Mexico City, Lagos, Rome, Bangkok, and Alexandria are all in impending danger of this phenomenon, which, if not tackled effectively, will inflict irreversible and extensive damage. Many of the provinces of Iran are also exposed to the dangers of land subsidence, which excessive water withdrawal have dramatically precipitated. 

Mr. Bagheri noted that the study he conducted in collaboration with a number of UT and Sharif scholars was based on a survey of 541 research articles published in reputable journals. The findings of the study have recently been published as a review article in the prestigious Science of the Total Environment journal, which is indexed in Elsevier Bibliographic Database.

Mr. Bagheri concluded the interview by explaining that because there are multifarious factors determining the measures to be adopted for the management of land subsidence in different areas, it would not be wise to prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution. Scholars should, instead, opt for effective solutions tailored for the unique condition of the land in question following a careful and in-depth examination.

The foregoing research study was conducted by Mehdi Baghri, Dr. Seyyed Mossa Hosseini, Dr. Behzad Ataei Ashtiani, Yasaman Sohani, Homa Ebrahamian, Faezeh Morovat, and Shervin Ghorban Ashrafi.