Spatial-temporal patterns of sinkhole development in the Konya Basin, Türkiye. Implications for susceptibility and time-variant hazard assessment

Gökkaya, Ergin ; Gutiérrez, Francisco (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Tunçel, Esra

Resumen: Subsidence sinkholes are often a major ground instability hazard in karst terrains and can cause severe economic losses, and even fatalities. Developing sinkhole susceptibility and hazard models with tested prognostic capability is essential for the design of effective risk-mitigation strategies. Since the early 2000s, hundreds of cover subsidence sinkholes have occurred in the Konya Basin related to intensive groundwater withdrawal for irrigation, constituting an outstanding and extensively investigated example of human-induced sinkholes. However, the susceptibility models developed have limited prediction capability and no attempts of assessing hazard and its temporal variability have been carried out so far. In this study, we have constructed comprehensive multi-temporal sinkhole inventories including morphometric data spanning from 2000 to 2024 for the entire basin (50,000 km2). The preferential occurrence of sinkholes in tight clusters along fault zones is attributed to deep hypogene karstification related to rising volcanogenic gases that locally renew the aggressiveness of the groundwater. Sinkhole hazard increased dramatically between 2000 and 2019 rising from 3 (2000−2010) to 32 sinkholes yr−1 (2016–2019), and has experienced a decline to 22 sinkholes yr−1 since 2020. This temporal trend, despite the continued water-table decline, is ascribed to the progressive exhaustion of collapse-prone cavities. Simple and easy-to-develop sinkhole susceptibility models based on the concept whereby new sinkholes tend to occur in the vicinity of pre-existing sinkholes, have been developed. For instance, high-susceptibility areas delineated by 500 m buffers around sinkholes formed documented between 2011 and 2019 predict with 1.7 % of the study area 65.2 % of the new sinkholes occurred in the interval 2020–2024.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1016/j.enggeo.2025.108480

Año: 2026

Publicado en: Engineering Geology 360 (2026), 108480 [21 pp.]
ISSN: 0013-7952

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/AEI/PID2021-123189NB-I00

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)

Área (Departamento): Área Geodinámica Externa (Dpto. Ciencias de la Tierra)