A national-scale assessment of land subsidence in China’s major cities
Zurui Ao, Xiaomei Hu, Shengli Tao, Xie Hu, Guoquan Wang, Mingjia Li, Fang Wang, Litang Hu, Xiuyu Liang, Jingfeng Xiao, Asadilla Yusup, Wenhua Qi, Qinwei Ran, Jiayi Fang, Jinfeng Chang, Zhenzhong Zeng, Yongshuo Fu, Baolin Xue, Ping Wang, Kefei Zhao, Le Li, Wenkai Li, Yumei Li, Mi Jiang, Yuanhe Yang, Haihua Shen, Xia Zhao, Yue Shi, Bo Wu, Zhengbing Yan, Mengjia Wang, Yanjun Su, Tianyu Hu, Qin Ma, Hao Bai, Lijun Wang, Ziyan Yang, Yuhao Feng, Danhua Zhang, Erhan Huang, Jiamin Pan, Huiying Ye, Chen Yang, Yanwei Qin, Chenqi He, Yanpei Guo, Kai Cheng, Yu Ren, Haitao Yang, Chengyang Zheng, Jiangling Zhu, Shaopeng Wang, Chengjun Ji, Biao Zhu, Hongyan Liu, Zhiyao Tang, Zhiheng Wang, Shuqing Zhao, Yanhong Tang, Hanfa Xing, Qinghua Guo, Yu Liu, Jingyun FangChina’s massive wave of urbanization may be threatened by land subsidence. Using a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry technique, we provided a systematic assessment of land subsidence in all of China’s major cities from 2015 to 2022. Of the examined urban lands, 45% are subsiding faster than 3 millimeters per year, and 16% are subsiding faster than 10 millimeters per year, affecting 29 and 7% of the urban population, respectively. The subsidence appears to be associated with a range of factors such as groundwater withdrawal and the weight of buildings. By 2120, 22 to 26% of China’s coastal lands will have a relative elevation lower than sea level, hosting 9 to 11% of the coastal population, because of the combined effect of city subsidence and sea-level rise. Our results underscore the necessity of enhancing protective measures to mitigate potential damages from subsidence.