An analysis of thousands of water and oil wells in the Houston metro area has uncovered significant rates of subsidence, or gradual sinking of the ground, in some of the region’s fast-growing suburbs that have not been previously reported. Shuhab Khan, professor of geology at the University of Houston, led the study published in the academic journal Remote Sensing. His team found substantial subsidence in Katy, Spring, The Woodlands, Fresno and Mont Belvieu with groundwater and oil and gas withdrawal identified as the primary cause. “Subsidence used to be a rare phenomenon. Now, it is all over the world,” Khan said. “There are 200 locations in 34 countries where there’s known subsidence. Cities in the northern Gulf of Mexico, such as Houston, have experienced one of the fastest rates of subsidence.”
