Delhi Urbanization Footprint and Its Effect On the Earth’s Subsurface State-Of-Stress Through Decadal Seismicity Modulation

Abstract

Urban land and its expansion have profoundly impacted the global environment, including the stress change in the earth’s subsurface, even though urban land is a small fraction of the global land surface. In developed countries, rural-to-urban migration is projected to decline, while in the developing world, especially in India, there is an anticipated increase in population moving from rural to urban areas. Gaining an interdisciplinary comprehension of how future urbanization and its impact on population will transform the Earth is crucial for addressing global sustainability challenges. This study focuses on the area surrounding Delhi, the capital city of India, to understand the relative contribution of the building load created by rapid urbanization in exacerbating the subsurface state-of-stress. The results highlight that, since 2010, the modulation in the seismicity rate and the stability of basement thrust faults is linked not only to urbanization but also to decadal groundwater storage. This affects the decadal seismicity trend around the Aravalli Delhi fold belt. Nonetheless, the magnitude of this time-dependent deformation influence on the seismicity modulation remains uncertain. The findings from this study quantify the geomechanical impacts of urbanization in the Delhi area for the first time