Cities Around the United States are Sinking | Earth And The Environment
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Original Coverage: Cities Around the United States are Sinking
Every one of the 28 largest US cities (by population) is sinking to some degree. This includes coastal cities like New York or Miami, as well as Dallas and Las Vegas. Houston is sinking fastest, although at very different rates depending on the neighborhood. This movement could strain and stress architecture and infrastructure. The researchers suggested that subsidence may be involved in more collapses than we know, and that we need to respond, address, mitigate, and adapt to the problem. The findings have been reported in Nature Cities. The study used satellite data to create grids and then map the movement of land down to the milliliter within the grids. The removal of groundwater is to blame for almost all subsidence – 80% of it. If all of the water is taken from an aquifer, the remaining hole can simply collapse, and the ground compacts there.
Source: Labroots.com | Read full article
28 American Cities Are Literally Sinking Into the Earth
Major U.S. cities are experiencing some degree of subsidence, a.k.a. sinking. Causes range from groundwater extraction to plate tectonics. The most extreme example is Houston, Texas, where some areas of the city are sinking as much as 10 millimeters per year. Even slight downward shifts in land can significantly compromise the structural integrity of buildings, roads, bridges, and railways over time, the lead author of the study said. The study was published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, and was led by Leonard Ohenhen, a former Virginia Tech graduate student and the study’s lead author. The leading cause of the sinking varies from city to city, but some parts of the country are still experiencing the extraordinary see-sawing of bedrock caused by the retreat of glaciers during the tail of the Pleistocene epoch, the study found. The implications of this higher-than-expected subsidence rate comes with a much more complex list of nearer-term practical problems for city planners and average homeowners.
Source: Popularmechanics.com | Read full article
San Antonio among several large Texas cities sinking at rapid rates, study finds
The study detailed the precarious positions of the 28 largest cities, per 2020 U.S. Census data. Six of the cities included in the study are located in the Lone Star State. Land subsidence can increase the likelihood of flooding, damage to buildings and disruption to mass transit systems. While there is no cure-all to combat land subsidence, researchers said actions such as building restrictions in high-risk areas, reinforcing critical infrastructure and continuous monitoring of subsidence levels are effective ways cities can respond to help keep citizens and the environment safe. The study also evaluated the risk of landSubsidence to approximately 5.6 million buildings in these cities. The only three cities the study does not consider to be sinking are Jacksonville, Florida, San Jose, California and Memphis, Tennessee.
Source: Ksat.com | Read full article
Every major city in the U.S. is sinking, and some are dropping faster than others
All of the 28 largest cities in the United States is sinking to some extent. In some areas, the ground is dropping as much as 5 centimeters (2 inches) per year. About 34 million Americans live on these subsiding lands. Houston is the nation’s fastest-sinking city, with parts of it sinking 10 millimeters (1 inch) a year. The study highlights lingering effects from the last ice age. Climate change-induced droughts, combined with continued population growth and water use, are likely to intensify these effects in the coming years. In Texas, the issue is compounded by oil and gas extraction, the study notes. The researchers used recent satellite data to map vertical land movement with millimeter precision, using grids just 28 meters (about 90 feet) wide. They estimate that about 1% of total land area in the 28 cities lies in zones where differential motion could significantly affect roads, railways, or buildings. These zones are often in densely populated urban cores, affecting roughly 29,000 buildings.
Source: Earth.com | Read full article
All Major U.S. Cities Are at Risk of Sinking, Not Just Coastal Urban Areas
The 28 most populous U.S. cities are all settling to one degree or other, according to a study in Nature Cities. The phenomenon isn’t limited to coastal urban areas but includes population centers in the country’s interior as well. Authors suspect that draining the groundwater upon which the cities sit is a major contributor. The researchers say that if the population keeps growing and water use keeps increasing, the sinking may quicken. Droughts caused by climate change could worsen the situation, the researchers say. But they say it’s not too late to address the problem, with land raised, drainage systems improved, and artificial wetlands added to the area where the cities are located. The study draws on recent satellite data to measure vertical land movements down to the millimeter within 90-square-foot grids. It was published in the journal Nature Cities, which is published by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the publisher of The New York Review of Books.
Source: Discovermagazine.com | Read full article
Dallas-Fort Worth is sinking faster than any other inland U.S. city, study shows
Dallas and Fort Worth are sinking at a rate of about 4 millimeters per year. Researchers attribute the sinking to the loss of groundwater. Over 70% of the land in Dallas-Fort Worth sinks about 3 mm every year. Houston’s subsidence issues have been well documented, according to KHOU-TV. The Harris-Galveston Subsidence District was formed in 1975 to address the impact of subsidence.
Source: Wfaa.com | Read full article
Land under the country’s largest cities is sinking. Here’s where — and why.
Land underneath the largest U.S. cities is sinking, a phenomenon threatening buildings, roads and rail lines. Researchers mapped out how land is moving vertically across the 28 most populous cities. Twenty-five of them are dropping across two-thirds of their land. About 34 million people live in the subsiding areas, according to the study published Thursday in Nature Cities. The movement is slow — sinking on the scale of millimeters per year in the United States — but the effects accumulate over years. The most dominant cause of sinking across most locations is the pumping of groundwater for drinking and agriculture, the researchers found. But Texas is home to the fastest subsiding places in the country, which pump groundwater but also a lot of gas and oil and have long been known for subsiding. For instance, during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, 85 percent of the area in the Helene-Galveston area of Houston flooded by 5 millimeters or more per year. During Hurricane Harvey, the area flooded by 85 percent or more each year.
Source: Washingtonpost.com | Read full article
Global Perspectives Summary
Our analysis reveals how this story is being framed differently across global media outlets.
Cultural contexts, editorial biases, and regional relevance all contribute to these variations.
This diversity in coverage underscores the importance of consuming news from multiple sources.
Sources
- Original: Cities Around the United States are Sinking
- 28 American Cities Are Literally Sinking Into the Earth
- San Antonio among several large Texas cities sinking at rapid rates, study finds
- Every major city in the U.S. is sinking, and some are dropping faster than others
- All Major U.S. Cities Are at Risk of Sinking, Not Just Coastal Urban Areas
- Dallas-Fort Worth is sinking faster than any other inland U.S. city, study shows
- Land under the country’s largest cities is sinking. Here’s where — and why.
Source: https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/29025/cities-united-sinking