Quantification of record-breaking subsidence in California’s San Joaquin Valley - Communications Earth & Environment
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A remote-sensing based quantification of land subsidence in the San Joaquin Valley, California, finds that recent land subsidence has matched the totals recorded historically, and suggests limiting groundwater withdrawal from deeper parts of the aquifer system.

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, groundwater overdraft has caused dramatic and continued land subsidence during two main periods, 1925–1970 (“the historic period”) and post-2006.

Considering the extraordinary 2006–2022 Valley-wide subsidence, we make high-level recommendations for subsidence mitigation, highlighting the importance of focusing groundwater overdraft reductions on the deeper aquifers where subsidence originates, and on localities where subsidence impacts are greatest.