What happens when the place you call home slowly disappears beneath the waters? For many students in Virginia Beach, this nightmare is becoming an increasingly concerning reality. While sea level rise and coastal land sinkage is often treated as a distant threat, in Hampton Roads, the dangers and effects are current and deeply personal.
Sinking Land and Rising Waters
Virginia Beach and the Hampton Roads area have been experiencing some of the most severe sea level rise on the entire East Coast, but rising seas isn’t the only threat present, the land itself is sinking. A recent Virginia Tech study explains that parts of Hampton Roads are sinking at rates between 5 to 7 millimeters annually, while simultaneously sea levels rise at about 3.5 millimeters per year. This means that in many places, the ground is sinking twice as fast as the ocean is rising…