One of the major problems facing ground-water hydrologists is to clarify the mechanism between ground-water flow and land subsidence.
A generalized equation governing the movement of water in saturated deformable porous media is derived, in the present study, from the equations of mass conservation, the equations of motion, and the equations of state. The equations of mass conservation are expressed in the Eulerian specification of the flow field. The equation for groundwater is approximated by a generalized Darcy's equation. The equation of motion for porous media is expressed by an equilibrium equation. The stress-strains are approximated by the well-known expressions of generalized Hooke's law for an isotropic elastic body.
It is assumed that densities of porous media do not change, that soil displacements occur only in the vertical direction, that the total stresses do not change, that the advective rate of change is neglected by comparison with the local rate of change, and that ground-water is an ideal liquid with small compressibility.