Using satellite technology, scientists have now determined that 25 of 28 of the most-populated cities in the United States are sinking at an alarming rate. Fort Worth, Houston and Dallas are sinking at the highest rates of all the large cities, followed by New York, Chicago, Columbus, Seattle and Denver.
“By comparing multiple images taken over time from the same area, we can detect tiny vertical movements of the ground, down to a few millimetres per year,” said Manoochehr Shirzaei, Associate Professor of Geophysics and Remote Sensing at Virginia Tech. “It’s like taking a high-resolution time-lapse of Earth’s surface and watching how it rises or sinks over time.”
In the study, published in the journal Nature Cities, the researchers state, “While often considered solely a coastal hazard due to relative sea-level rise, subsidence also threatens inland urban areas, causing increased flood risks, structural damage and transportation disruptions. However, spatially dense subsidence rates that capture granular variations at high spatial density are often lacking, hindering assessment of associated infrastructure risks.”…