Effects of regional subsidence and earthquakes on architectural monuments in Mexico City

Mexico City is mostly located over extremely soft lacustrine clays that have been undergoing a consolidation process due to the exploitation of the aquifers underlying these soils. Therefore, the city has been sinking and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future; resulting differential settlements have constantly damaged most of the city's architectural heritage. Mexico City is located within a high seismicity zone. Earthquakes have also damaged the city's architectural treasures and will continue to be threatened by them in the future. In this paper it is described the way in which these two hazards have affected monuments in the past, and at the ways in which they may as well be combined in the future to pose further threats. In order to do that, it is considered the change of the properties of the subsoil as a result of the futures changes of pore pressures within the clays, and of the resulting effective stress increments in the seismic response of the soft lacustrine clay deposits.