The Sinking City

Shanghai has descended 6 feet since 1921, due largely to mass urban migration, soft soil, weight of the skyscrapers and global warming. Malicious cracks have appeared in the ground, some as deep as 20 feet, near 101 story Shanghai World Financial Center. China’s premier building research institute - China Institute of Building Standards Design and Research - has cited groundwater, rainfall and soft soil foundation as the reasons for such settlements. With a population of 23 million in 2010, Shanghai is one of the most densely packed cities in China. 200 skyscrapers were constructed in 2011 alone, and 800 more will be added by 2016.

The problems have been worsened by over development and over pumping of ground water. The government has banned a lot of wells and is in fact pumping water back into the underground reservoirs. It pumps 60,000 tons of water through 121 wells.

More than 50 cities across China face similar problems. Beijing has descended more than a foot in the last ten years, and plans to close 800 water extraction wells this year. By 2014, the city hopes to halt underground water extraction completely.

 偿债城市： 存在的问题有恶化的发展，而不抽的地下水。政府已禁止大量的井，其实水抽回地下水库。它通过 121 井泵水 6 万吨。中国各地的 50 多个城市面临着类似的问题。北京已经在过去的十年中，传一英尺多，并计划于今年关闭 800 萃取水井。2014 年，城市希望完全停止地下水提取。

 Reference: Springer, Kate, Soaring to Sinking: How Building Up Is Bringing Shanghai Down, ecocentric.blogs.time.com, May 21, 2012 
Photo Credit:  MXFCM under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
 

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