January 20, 2026
NEWSLETTER
Ground Movement Beneath Infrastructure Assets
In this newsletter, we examine how ground movement beneath infrastructure assets represents a persistent but often underestimated risk to the safety, performance, and longevity of critical infrastructure systems. Roads, railways, pipelines, airports, energy facilities, and urban infrastructure are all founded on ground that is not static, but continuously evolving under the influence of natural processes and human activity. While dramatic failures are relatively rare, slow ground deformation accumulating over time can progressively degrade asset integrity and increase operational risk.
Ground movement affecting infrastructure typically develops gradually and may be driven by soil consolidation, groundwater extraction, tunnelling and excavation, mining, hydrocarbon production, geothermal operations, and natural geological compaction. These processes can result in subsidence, uplift, or lateral displacement at rates of only a few millimetres per year. For infrastructure assets, the critical issue is often not the absolute magnitude of movement, but its spatial variability. Differential settlement introduces bending stresses, misalignment, and fatigue that may exceed design tolerances long before deformation becomes visible at the surface.
Traditional approaches to monitoring ground movement beneath infrastructure rely on point-based measurements such as levelling surveys, GNSS stations, extensometers, or inclinometers. These techniques provide high accuracy at specific locations but are inherently limited in spatial coverage. For linear or spatially extensive assets, it is rarely feasible to deploy dense instrumentation over the entire footprint. As a result, deformation occurring between measurement points or outside instrumented areas may remain undetected for long periods. Visual inspections, while essential, are typically reactive and may only identify problems once ground movement has already affected asset performance.
Satellite-based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has therefore become an increasingly important tool for monitoring ground movement beneath infrastructure assets at regional scale. By analysing phase differences between repeated radar acquisitions, InSAR enables measurement of ground deformation with millimetre-level sensitivity over wide areas. Time-series analysis allows slow deformation trends and emerging hotspots to be identified long before visible damage occurs, providing a valuable complement to in-situ monitoring.
Linear infrastructure such as railways, roads, and pipelines is particularly sensitive to differential ground movement. Pipelines transporting oil, gas, water, or hydrogen may experience increased axial strain and bending where subsidence varies along the corridor, accelerating fatigue or coating degradation. Rail infrastructure is similarly vulnerable, as uneven settlement beneath tracks can degrade geometry, increase maintenance demands, and impose operational restrictions. Studies have shown that even low deformation rates, when spatially variable, can have significant lifecycle cost implications.
Airport infrastructure represents another critical class of assets highly sensitive to ground movement. Runways, taxiways, and aprons require strict geometric tolerances to ensure aircraft safety and effective drainage. Because runways extend over large, continuous areas, they are particularly exposed to spatially variable subsidence. At Barcelona–El Prat Airport, long-term settlement related to soft soil conditions and groundwater management has required continuous monitoring and remediation to maintain operational safety. Similarly, Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands has experienced subsidence driven by peat compaction and groundwater control, necessitating ongoing ground-movement monitoring and adaptive maintenance strategies.
Fig. 4 – InSAR-derived ground on (a) Barcelona Airport and (b) Schiphol Airport (data: GeoKinesia).
Pipeline infrastructure in urban and peri-urban environments presents additional challenges, as ground movement often interacts with third-party activity and changing land use. In Malaysia, the high-profile failure of a Petronas gas pipeline in the Putra Heights area highlighted the complexity of managing long linear assets in densely developed regions. While official investigations identified third-party interference as the immediate cause, subsequent industry discussions emphasized that ground instability and local soil movement can increase pipeline vulnerability and complicate integrity management.
Fig. 5 – Petronas gas pipeline incident in Malaysia showing (a) pipeline rupture and (b) subsequent explosion in an urban setting.
The collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa in 2018 illustrates how critical infrastructure can fail as a result of long-term, progressive degradation processes that remain only partially observable during routine inspections. While the immediate causes of the collapse were primarily related to structural deterioration and corrosion of pre-stressed concrete elements, the event highlighted broader challenges in managing ageing infrastructure exposed to interacting environmental, material, and foundation-related processes. In complex systems, subtle changes in supporting ground conditions or foundation behaviour—when combined with structural vulnerabilities—can incrementally reduce safety margins over time. The Morandi Bridge failure therefore reinforces the importance of long-term, wide-area monitoring approaches that provide contextual information on ground behaviour around critical assets, supporting earlier risk awareness and more informed asset management decisions.
The integration of ground-movement monitoring into infrastructure asset management supports a shift from reactive to proactive risk management. Rather than responding only to visible damage or service disruption, operators can use deformation trends to prioritise inspections, target maintenance, and assess long-term risk exposure. In this context, ground movement functions as an early-warning indicator rather than a direct predictor of failure.
As infrastructure networks age and environmental pressures increase, understanding ground behaviour beneath assets will become even more important. Climate variability, urban densification, and subsurface activities associated with the energy transition are expected to intensify ground-movement processes in many regions.
