Remote Sensing Characterization of Mountain Excavation and City Construction in Loess Plateau

The demand for land exploitation to accommodate increasing population in metropolis is escalating worldwide. The unprecedented Mountain Excavation and City Construction project in the hilly gully Loess Plateau of China is a crustal surgery to seek the balance between urbanization and sustainability in the forerunner Yan'an city. Here, we rely on multisource remote sensing imagery to characterize the contemporary anthropogenic modification of the loess landscape. The topography has been reshaped with ±80‐m elevation changes and 1.28 × 108‐m3 mass transfer by 2015. The subsidence rates at up to ∼70 mm/year during 2014–2020 are proportional to the amount of the filling mass, which is expected to reach stabilization by 2030. Hundreds‐of‐kilopascal stress changes are distributed in the shallow zone due to the mass transfer. Continuous monitoring is an integral part of hazard mitigation in this naturally landslide hazard‐prone loess environment. Plain Language Summary The land usage has become a global crisis with increasing population and diminishing habitats in the context of climate change. How can we human beings modify the harsh environment for urbanization? Unprecedented crustal surgery in the forms of hilltop cuts and gully fills is happening over the Loess Plateau of China. Tens of square kilometers of new land flattened in Yan'an. We use multisource remote sensing imagery to quantify the spatiotemporal surface changes and ground deformation, to predict the length of time it needs to be stabilized, and to model the consequent stress changes in the hazard‐prone loess landscapes. This study demonstrates the full potentials of remote sensing in characterizing the human‐nature interactions. Key Points Yan'an new urban area subsides at 70 mm/year, in proportion to the amount of the filling mass Decelerating settlement is expected to reach stabilization by 2030 Elastic stress changes amount to hundreds of kPa in the shallow zone of anthropogenic loading and unloading