Subsidence and sinkholes along the Jordanian coast of the Dead Sea: Contribution of gravimetry and radar differential interferometry

The Dead Sea shore is affected by major subsidence and sinkholes hazards due to the decrease of the sea level. The frequency of resulting accidents increased during the last four decades. Those phenomena could be at the origin of the catastrophic destruction of a major salt evaporation pond on 22 March 2000. In this paper, we show the main results of eight years of research in gravimetry and radar interferometry devoted to identify potentially hazardous areas, at different scales along the Jordanian Dead Sea coast, from the metric scale (gravimetric approach) to the kilometric one (interferometric approach). 2003 Academie des sciences. Publie par Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. Tous droits reserves.