Intelligent Systems for Detection and Control Damage on Buried Infrastructure due to Soil Subsidence

Abstract

Subsidence and its impact on infrastructure and urban systems is a serious problem for many of the most densely populated cities in the world and a huge challenge for those who develop safe, sustainable and resilient communities. In Mexico City, from the government’s call to generate solutions to this problem, a huge multidisciplinary project is being developed to attack the most pressing fronts: control of the effects, management of the pumping of the aquifers, simulation of catastrophic scenarios for the reintegration of the inhabitants in sites with better capacities to hold communities. This presentation summarizes the contributions about digital twins of the soil/rock masses (key properties and their evolution) and the controlling system to prevent and to repair leaks in pipeline networks. Evaluate these aspects permits study future pumping scenarios to assist in selecting an optimal rate of extraction that minimizes overall subsidence, meet the requirements of city development plan and be consistent with continued sustainable economic development. No doubt about the many other aspects that need to be analyzed but this first stage is crucial to start a reconfiguration of the city life, reconciled with nature, aware of the ravages of excessive and unbalanced consumption of the vital liquid.