Singapore-Sana
A team of researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore working with a group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found evidence showing parts of major coastal cities are sinking faster as a result of rising seas.
Sky News quoted the research team as saying in a scientific paper published in the journal Nature Sustainability that it used satellite-based radar to measure the degree of land subsidence in 48 of the largest cities in the world. According to the recent study, many cities are facing a problem represented in: Subsidence of the ground where the ground is submerged due to the removal of ground water or gas and the compaction of the ground from the enormous weight of the buildings above it.
Previous research has shown that global warming is melting ice around the world, causing sea levels to rise, and this increase in sea levels is a major concern for cities and towns on the fringes of watery coasts.
The researchers measured subsidence in 48 of the world's largest cities over the years from 2014 to 2020 and found that nearly all of the cities they studied experienced some degree of subsidence, and in 44 of them some areas were sinking at a faster rate due to rising seas.
Previous research showed that sea levels rise by about 3.7 millimeters each year, but the researchers found in their study that some parts of these cities are experiencing land sinking at a rate of up to 20 millimeters per year.
The average sinking rate for the Vietnamese city of Ho Chi Minh, for example, was 16.2 millimeters per year, the study found. 2030 if measures are not taken to curb sea rise.
The study indicated that sea level rise resulting from climate change has received great attention from researchers as an ongoing threat that must be addressed. Thus, international efforts were gathered through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the future risks of climate change and sea level rise. and assisting policy makers in developing sustainable adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The researchers drew less attention to the subsidence of the land in front of the phenomenon of the sinking of coastal cities, and this new phenomenon is the sinking of the land at rates that can exceed tens of millimeters per year, which can increase the relative rise in sea level several times more than the average global sea level rise by a few millimeters. in the year.
According to the study, many of the coastal areas with the fastest rates of land subsidence are major cities built on flat and low-lying river deltas, exposing large populations and significant economic value to serious impacts.
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