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The City That Sinks Faster Than the Sea Rises
What comes next9 min

The City That Sinks Faster Than the Sea Rises

Jakarta is subsiding into the earth several times faster than the ocean is climbing to meet it, driven by millions of wells pumping the ground out from under itself. This episode traces the slow-motion collapse of a megacity to explain a future that dozens of coastal cities are quietly walking toward.

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Show notes

Jakarta sinks up to twelve centimeters annually in localized patches due to uneven ground movement.

Groundwater extraction causes microscopic clay layers to collapse and permanently compact under the city.

Seventy-one percent of people in low-lying coastal zones live on land that is actively sinking.

Land subsidence currently poses a more immediate threat to coastal populations than rising sea levels.

Tokyo successfully stopped its twenty-centimeter annual sinking by strictly managing groundwater extraction.

Sea walls often fail because the ground they sit on continues to drop beneath them.

In this episode
  1. 01Intro1 min
  2. 02The Patchwork of a Sinking City2 min
  3. 03The Mechanics of the Void2 min
  4. 04A Global Coastal Crisis2 min
  5. 05The Path to Stabilization2 min
  6. 06Outro1 min
Sources
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The City That Sinks Faster Than the Sea Rises — Fylom