Coastal cities are sinking faster than sea-level rise
Camille Squires - Tuesday
Coastal cities like Miami and Guangzhou face the prospect of massive flooding as sea-levels rise. Yet some cities are confronting an even more urgent threat of flooding than one brought on by climate change. A new study of 99 cities around the world published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, reveals some of the world’s major cities are sinking even faster than the sea levels around them are rising.
At least 33 cities are falling by more than one centimeter per year, five times the rate of sea-level rise, based on recent estimates of global sea-level rise. The fastest-sinking cities, concentrated in South and Southeast Asia, are being forced to adapt. Indonesia, for example, is moving its capital from Jakarta, a megacity of 10.5 million, to a newly constructed city on the island of Borneo, 2,000 km (1,250 mi) away in part because Jakarta is sinking.
All of this has implications for cities' plans to deal with increased coastal flooding. If subsidence continues at its current rate, researchers warn, flood models that only account for sea-level rise will be insufficient to predict the intensity and speed with which worse floods will come on. Essentially, coastal cities are in for a watery future sooner than current models predict. Plans to floodproof cities in the future will need to involve floodwalls and other types of measures to keep water out, but must also include regulation for the activities that sink cities further into the ground.
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