Sinking Chinese Cities and Protected Alaskan Wilderness
Some notes & quotes from recent reads:
Water Extraction and Weight of Buildings See Half of China's Cities Sink
Quotes:
Nearly half of China's major cities are sinking because of water extraction and the increasing weight of their rapid expansion, researchers say.
Some cities are subsiding rapidly, with one in six exceeding 10mm per year.
China's rapid urbanisation in recent decades means far more water is now being drawn up to meet people's needs, scientists say.
In coastal cities, this subsidence threatens millions of people with flooding as sea levels rise.
Notes:
This is going to be a big story over the next decade, as subsidence (more info in a recent Let’s Know Things podcast episode here, if you’re interested) is reaching catastrophic levels in some highly populated areas, and the options for dealing with this include moving (which isn’t always feasible for tens of millions of people, but some governments are taking this approach), refilling underground aquifers (some are doing this, too, but it’s expensive and can limit above-ground growth), and ignoring the problem and paying for the consequences of time (most cities are doing this, at the moment, as it’s the “kick the can down the road” option—future generations cursed to deal with higher amelioration and repair costs).
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