This paper studies the appearance of low-magnitude earthquakes linked to rapid movements of subsidence-related faults in the Aguascalientes valley. A particular seismic event is studied and occurred in the normal ancient Oriente Fault whose rapid movement was captured with PSInSAR.

The impact of faults and fissures (discontinuities) on the groundwater flow has become important in several parts of the world because the heterogeneous and anisotropic distribution of permeability in fault zones is difficult to characterize. Based on this, we propose an analysis of patterns of parameters measured in groundwater, under the premise that the observed anomalies can be indicators of the hydraulic behavior of the flow in the direction perpendicular to the fault plane.

Aguascalientes valley, located in the central part of México, is affected for a land subsidence process triggered by groundwater withdrawal. The resulted P-wave velocity models show a low-velocity anomaly within the fracture trace with widths from 50 to 100 meters. This anomaly is interpreted as a mechanically disturbed zone due to the activity of the surface fault, this is, due to the presence of fracturing caused to the adjacent material by the differential subsidence.

The organization and working way of an interdisciplinary and intragovernmental committee to face the effects of the land subsidence related ground failures in Aguascalientes State, México is showed. The committee is composed by federal, state, and municipal governmental agencies, as well as privet and civil associations, and the state university, working split in four groups to manage the risk related to ground cracks and surface faults.

This work presents the experimental and numerical results about a study regarding the performance of a full-scale thin-walled cold-formed steel building affected by ground differential settlements.