Earth
5 Cities Sinking 200× Faster Than Venice
Venice is famous for sinking, yet it's slow compared with several other big cities. This Short ranks five places where the ground is dropping fastest and blames the same culprit for all of them: pumping groundwater out of soft clay, which then compacts for good. The rates shown are the highest local measurements.
The numbers
- Venice sinks about 2 mm a year; the five cities sink up to 200 times faster.
- Ho Chi Minh City drops up to 8 cm a year and Jakarta up to 11 cm.
- About 40% of Jakarta lies below sea level.
- Semarang sinks up to about 20 cm a year and parts of Tehran over 25 cm.
- Mexico City drops up to about 40 cm a year.
Sources cited in the video: Cigna & Tapete (2021) · Haghshenas Haghighi & Motagh (2019) · Wu, Wei & D'Hondt (2022), GRL · NASA/JPL NISAR · Copernicus Sentinel
