Science: World in 100 Years. Thousands of Cities at Risk of Sinking

Within 100 years, thousands of coastal cities are at risk of sinking, especially on the Asian continent. The alarm sounded from the pages of Science magazine that published a study, according to which every tenth inhabitant in China, as well as in some other countries of Southeast Asia, is at risk of being under water by 2120. This time, the main culprit is not global warming, but subsidence – the phenomenon of land sinking, especially in metropolitan areas, caused by various natural and anthropogenic factors.

Science is a scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is considered one of the most prestigious journals in the scientific field along with Nature.

Among the natural causes, the authors of the alarming scientific study cited soil erosion, limestone rock dissolution, volcanic activity, earthquakes, and natural soil compaction. As for the main causes of this dangerous process caused by homo sapiens, the authors of the study pointed the finger at the colossal weight of modern cities, “excessive and unstable, coming from buildings, structures and industries, roads and communication lines that put considerable stress on the underlying soil, which in some cases would be unable to bear it, leading to slow and inevitable subsidence.”

Naturally, humanity’s daily activities, including groundwater, oil, or gas extraction, as well as mining, contribute to accelerating this phenomenon.

The hypothesis was widely confirmed by Peking University, which analyzed dangerous changes in the underlying soil of 82 major population centers in the Asian country with a population density of more than 2 million inhabitants. In addition to confirming the slow but progressive and unstoppable flooding of Chinese cities, the researchers found that “due to the phenomenon of subsidence, as well as sea level rise, about 22-26% of selected coastal megacities in China may, within a few decades, sink, putting millions of citizens at risk, especially in the cities of Fuzhou, Hefei, and Xi’an, as well as Beijing, which is 272 kilometers from the sea.”

Not only in China, but in many other countries around the world, major cities are at risk of being underwater. According to the geophysicist of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Tom Parsons, who conducted the study on the example of the city of San Francisco, the weight of buildings of the American megacity, excluding residents and vehicles, estimated at 1,600,000,000 tons, can lead to the bending of the lithosphere, that is, the most external solid shell of the Earth, the thickness of which on average does not exceed 70-100 kilometers.