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Water extraction and weight of buildings see half of China’s cities sink

April 24, 2024

Water extraction and weight of buildings see half of China’s cities sink

Getty Images China building subsidenceGetty Images
A building subsides and collapses in Guangxi province

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.

graphic

China has a long history of dealing with subsiding land, with both Shanghai and Tianjin showing evidence of sinking back in the 1920s. Shanghai has sunk more than 3m over the past century.

In more modern times, the country is seeing widespread evidence of subsidence in many of the cities that have expanded rapidly in recent decades.

To understand the scale of the problem, a team of researchers from several Chinese universities have examined 82 cities, including all with a population over 2 million.

They’ve used data from the Sentinel-1 satellites to measure vertical land motions across the country.

Looking across the period from 2015 to 2022, the team was able to work out that 45% of urban areas are subsiding by more than 3mm per year.

Around 16% of urban land is going down faster than 10mm a year, which the scientists describe as a rapid descent.

Put another way, this means 67 million people are living in rapidly sinking areas.

The researchers say that the cities facing the worst problems are concentrated in the five regions highlighted on the map shown.

The scale of decline is influenced by a number of factors, including geology and the weight of buildings. But a major element, according to the authors, is groundwater loss.

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Lakes run dry from too much water extraction and climate change

January 8, 2019

Lakes run dry from too much water extraction and climate change

Source: Hannah Osborne. Feb 8, 2016. Bolivia’s vanishing Lake Poopó: ESA images show fully evaporated lake from space. International Business Times.

Preface.  It’s bad enough that aquifers are being depleted that won’t recharge until after the next ice age, or in some places like California, never, because greedy farmers suck all the water up and the caverns below collapse and will never fill up with water again.

But equally problematic are lakes and rivers drying up, essential for agriculture, fisheries, drinking, and industrial water supplies.

Ah the poor grandchildren, what a bleak future, with little time left to do anything, if that’s even possible given human nature…

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report

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Kate Ravilious. 4 March 2016. Many of world’s lakes are vanishing and some may be gone forever. NewScientist.

Bolivia’s second largest lake has vanished into thin air. In December, Lake Poopó became a dry salt pan and its largest lake – Lake Titicaca – is heading towards trouble, too. The combination of silting up and irrigation withdrawal from the Desaguadero River, which feeds Poopó, together with climate change and the extra warmth from current El Niño, were enough to finish this lake off.

Recent research and new data suggest that lakes in other parts of the world may also be on their way out.

“Considering the size of the lake – 2700 square kilometers (1042 square miles) – this is quite an astounding event, with slim prospects of recovery,” says Dirk Hoffmann from the Bolivia Mountain Institute. “This event should serve as a real warning. Eventually, we can expect Lake Titicaca to go the same way.”

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