An investigation on land surface deformation resulting from the compaction of producing overconsolidated gas/oil reservoirs is presented. If the depleted formation is signi®cantly less compressible than the surrounding medium the vertical reservoir shrinkage is relatively smaller than the horizontal one, thus generating a possible swelling of the overburden and a consequent pronounced decrease of land subsidence or even a surface uplift. Such an e€ect may also cause an additional land settlement during the post-productive recovery phase over ®elds which exhibit a sti€er be-havior in expansion. In the present paper the surface displacements caused by the depletion of an overconsolidated disk-shaped reservoir are analyzed by a ®nite element model taking into account the in¯uence of the disk burial depth and areal extent, the Poisson ratio of the medium, and the underburden sti€ness. The results obtained with a more realistic three-dimensional setting are also discussed to address the possible e€ects of an irregular reservoir geome-try.