HOUSTON — A University of Houston analysis of water and oil wells in the Houston metro has uncovered gradual sinking of the ground, causing significant problems for neighborhoods.
This is happening in some of the area’s fastest-growing suburbs, like Katy, Spring, The Woodlands, Fresno and Mont Belvieu.
Groundwater, oil and gas withdrawals are identified as the primary cause for much of the damage.
“You’re talking about people’s homes just falling apart that are really on the fault line,” one Spring Branch neighbor said.
Shuhab Khan, professor of geology at the University of Houston, led the study. His team identified the substantial subsidence or gradual sinking in some of Houston's most populated residential areas.
Some of the areas have not been previously reported.
“Like flooding, these are becoming part of our life. Knowing about them, educating ourselves about them is useful,” Khan said.
Martha James said she has not faced issues with sinking caused by subsidence in the Spring Branch area.
“They’ve always said that if we’re on the high side, which we are, that it wouldn’t affect us,” James said.
However, she’s lived in the neighborhood for nearly 50 years and said she sees the effects of the subsidence with the ground moving 2 centimeters (less than an inch) per year over the time she’s been there.
“I know down on the fault line right behind us, that those houses and some of the newer ones really cracked and really fell,” James said.
UH researchers used satellite radar images from 2016 to 2020, paired with hotspot analysis on the ground, to find the areas having increased subsidence.
But although this is happening, there is a solution.
"The areas which were subsiding in the past are not subsiding, because of the rules and regulations and management. It's working," Khan said.
The sinking is not only causing significant damage to property owners but also to roadways.