The Campine basin situated in the NE of Belgium is a part of a large paralic Carboniferous coal basin of the NW Europe. It is located north of the Lower Palaeozoic of the London Brabant Massif. Eatsward, the South Limburg coal basin consists in the extension of the Campine basin to The Netherlands. The first mining concessions were granted in 1906 and the last mines (Eisden and Zolder) were closed in 1992 giving the region a particular interest for the study of the ground movement monitoring. Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) technique is applied to estimate the vertical displacement of the Campine coal basin during period of 18 years (1992–2010). Even if the area has a lot of field crops giving a poor density of reflector the deformation of the ground is well highlighted. The movements have a relative low amplitude with an average rate between -1 and +1 cm/year in the centre of the formers coal exploitations.. Both movements are related to groundwater extraction needed for the coal exploitation. During the dewatering time a depression cone was active and continued few years after the closure of the mine as seen in the ERS results (1992-2000) of the western part. A difference of five years exists between eastern (1987-1988) and the western (1992) closure dates so the western part is subsiding while the other part is already uplift. The explanation of the uplift seems to be related to the increasing water pressure in the collieries giving the possibility to heighten the area. The results issued from Envisat (Asar) processing show a new situation, the western part has an uplift trend during the period 2003-2010. From this observation, we can conclude that the recharge of the mine aquifer need to gain a critical level before being able to raise the ground level.

International Redaction Board