Half of China’s major cities are sinking

China is bracing against epic flooding caused by climate change. Millions of people are at risk as we speak.

According to a new Science paper, things are going to get progressively worse for China.

Nearly half of China’s major cities are sinking, with one-quarter of China’s coastal land expected to slip below sea level in coming decades.

The land subsidence could affect hundreds of millions of people.

Researchers say a range of natural and human factors are to blame, including the depth of a city’s bedrock, groundwater depletion, the weight of buildings, the use of transport systems and underground mining.

When combined with rising sea-levels owing to climate change, the potential impact is “terrifying”, says geophysicist Wei Meng. The report was published in Science.

One in ten residents of China’s coastal cities could be living below sea level within a century, as a result of land subsidence and climate change, according to a paper published in Science today.

With China as the “factory” of the world, and unrestrained use of resources such as land, rivers, water, people, can we expect anything else?

Some 16% of the mapped area of China’s major cities is sinking “rapidly” — faster than 10 millimetres every year. An even greater area, roughly 45%, is sinking at a “moderate” rate, the paper says, meaning a downward trajectory of greater than 3 mm annually. Affected cities include the capital Beijing, as well as regional capitals, including Fuzhou, Hefei and Xi’an.

The situation could see one-quarter of China’s coastal lands slip below sea level within a few decades, posing “serious threats” to the hundreds of millions of people who live on the coast, the paper notes.