Researchers underscore the widespread issue of urban land subsidence affecting millions in China, emphasizing the need for strategic responses to mitigate this underrecognized yet critical challenge linked to climate change.
The research paper, published in the same issue, considers 82 cities with a collective population of nearly 700 million people. The results show that 45% of the urban areas that were analysed are sinking, with 16% falling at a rate of 10mm a year or more.Nationally, roughly 270 million urban residents are estimated to be affected, with nearly 70 million experiencing rapid subsidence of 10mm a year or more. Hotspots include Beijing and Tianjin.
Shanghai – China’s biggest city – has subsided up to 3m over the past century and continues to subside today. When subsidence is combined with sea-level rise, the urban area in China below sea level could triple in size by 2120, affecting 55 to 128 million residents. This could be catastrophic without a strong societal response.
In Osaka and Tokyo, groundwater withdrawal was stopped in the 1970s, and city subsidence has ceased or greatly reduced showing this is an effective mitigation strategy. Traffic vibration and tunneling is potentially also a local contributing factor – Beijing has a sinking of 45mm a year near subways and highways. The natural upward or downward land movement also occurs but is generally much smaller than human-induced changes.
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