China is drowning in dust... How so?

ArabiaWeather - Chinese cities are witnessing rapid growth with the increasing construction of skyscrapers and giant buildings on every side. However, a new study revealed an uncomfortable surprise for the residents. According to the latest study, 16% of major cities in China suffer from a drop in ground level of more than 10 mm annually.

Half of the country's largest cities lose approximately 3 mm annually, according to the results of the study published in the journal Science. Although these numbers may seem unremarkable at first, they add up quickly and within 100 years, a quarter of China's urban coastal land is expected to be submerged by sea level, as a result of a combination of land subsidence and sea level rise, according to the study's conclusions. .

In China, the sheer weight of buildings and pumping water causes the ground to subside

The study found that subsidence in cities is partly due to the sheer weight of buildings and infrastructure, as well as pumping water from aquifers, oil drilling and coal mining, activities that leave underground voids into which soil and rock can compress or collapse.

The new study used radar measurements from satellites to determine land surface movement in 82 major cities in China, representing three-quarters of the urban population, between 2015 and 2022. The researchers compared these measurements with data on possible contributing factors, such as the weight of buildings in those cities and the changing groundwater levels beneath them.

The researchers combined subsidence measurements with sea level rise projections to identify cities that might fall below sea level in the future.

Warnings of sea level falling

One caveat to these findings is that they were based on a fixed rate of decline over the next 100 years. However, these rates can change as human activity changes.

The study indicates that about 6% of the land in China's coastal cities is currently below sea level.

The study found that if global average sea level rises by 0.87 metres, or just under 3 feet, by 2120 (the higher of the two common scenarios the researchers considered), this could reach 26%.

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Sources:

alarabiya