Washington – The 28 main cities in the United States are sinking between 2 and 10 millimeters per year mainly due to the extraction of water tables, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature Cities.
The cities with a more widespread sinking, with about 98% of its affected area, are CHICAGO, DALLAS, Columbus, Detroit, Fort Worth, Denver, New York, Indianapolis, Houston and Charlotte.
While, in five of these cities (New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas and Forth Worth), at least 10% of the urban area is sinking at a rate that exceeds 3 millimeters per year.
Houston is the most quickly sinking into the countrythe authors indicated, where 12% of their land suffers a subsidence of more than 10 millimeters per year.
The study, conducted by a group of scientists from the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, UHe tilized geodesic measures captured by satellite between 2015 and 2021 to create high -resolution sinking rates maps of the 28 most populated cities in the country.
The scientists concluded that at least 20% of the urban area of the 28 cities examined are sinking, which affects about 34 million people.
The study also stressed that more than 29,000 buildings are located in areas of those cities with a high or very high damage risk.
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The rapid sinking of large cities located in coastal areas around the worldlike Yakarta, Bangkok, Venice or New Orleans, it has been well known for a long time.
But cities located inland, such as Mexico City, Beijing or Tehran, are also suffering from worrying sinking rates, the authors indicated, which warned that even small substantial figures can cause serious damage to structures over time.