China’s main cities are sinking, says scientific magazine

A study published by the scientific journal Science points out that almost half of China’s large cities are sinking. The reasons, according to the researchers, are water extraction and weight gain caused by real estate expansion.

According to the study, carried out in 82 cities, 16% of the locations analyzed sink by 10 millimeters per year and 45% of cities “fall” by 3 millimeters. In this scenario, a total of 67 million people live in areas that could collapse.

According to the researchers, the intense urbanization experienced by China in recent decades has increased the extraction of water from the ground, a way of meeting the demand of the Chinese population. As a result, coastal cities are being threatened by the phenomenon of subsidence, a term used in geology to describe a lowering of the ground, as sea levels are already rising due to climate change.

Historical problem

This problem has been affecting China for several decades. Research carried out in the 1920s in the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin already showed signs of sinking. Points in Shanghai, for example, have sunk more than 3 meters in the last century.

Chinese coastal cities have previously appeared in other reports on challenges related to rising sea levels. A study published last year in the journal Geophysical Research Letters assessed 99 locations around the world and revealed that some major cities are sinking even faster than the sea levels around them are rising. In this report, Tianjin, in China, already had the highest sinking rate in the world, with 5.22 centimeters per year.

Source: Redação Terra