부산대학교 도서관

Space and time variations of alluvial karst subsidence in the central Ebro Basin are analysed in trenches (paleodolines), aerial photographs (historical dolines) and field surveys (present-day active dolines). The measured subsidence rates, as well as a comparison between densities of paleodolines computed in randomly selected scan-lines and density of active dolines computed in maps, suggest that present-day subsidence in favourable areas is more intense than that of Pleistocene times. According to diachronic maps drawn from (a) different aerial photographs taken after 1946 and (b) field surveys on deformations in urbanized areas, subsidence behaved as a nearly steady process while the whole area was used for agriculture. In contrast, rapid changes (through periods of several tens of years) have occurred in urbanized areas, in which dolines expand their boundaries through small marginal collapses, shifting sharply their sinking centres to neighbouring sites. These rapid changes do not have an equivalent in observed paleodolines.