the land beneath many american cities sinkingincluding New Orleans, New York City, Miami and South San Francisco.
This phenomenon is called Ground subsidence, can seriously affect the integrity of buildings and infrastructure. Coupled with rising sea levels, this greatly increases the incidence of flooding.
Problems related to land subsidence can cost U.S. homeowners up to 6% of their home’s value. Forthcoming research by Mehdi Nemati, assistant professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues suggests that number could jump to 8.1 percent in areas with severe subsidence. Their study focused on California’s Central Valley, but Nemati said the findings could be generalized nationwide.
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Standard home insurance usually Not covered According to Policygenius, land subsidence is an issue, although in some areas you may be able to purchase specific insurance against subsidence caused by nearby mines or mining activities.
Consumers may see the effects of land subsidence directly (in the form of housing problems) and indirectly (in the form of local economic problems).
What is the cause of land subsidence
Both natural and man-made processes cause land subsidence.
As glaciers retreat from land in the U.S. and Canada, the process creates a “see-saw” effect, with the U.S.’s land area falling and Canada’s land area rising, the researchers said.
Manoochehr Shirzaei, professor of geophysics and remote sensing at Virginia Tech, also attributes some of the land subsidence to tectonic processes.
“For example, earthquakes can cause land to rise, but they can also (make land) fall in some places. So both are considered natural processes,” he said.
Anthropogenic land subsidence is related to the way we develop cities, namely groundwater extraction and building practices.
“We use groundwater for drinking and other purposes. When we take water from the land, the space underneath the land becomes compacted because we build on the land,” said Rob Fernando, the company’s vice president of energy and environment. Rob Freudenberg said. Heavy construction materials also compact the land, putting infrastructure at risk.
Most infrastructure is not designed with land transfer in mind. Experts say this can be dangerous.
“If you think about something like a railroad line, and the railroad line goes through ground that’s sinking, some of it will sink and some of it won’t,” Freudenberg said. “So now there might be something underneath the track that was there before. There’s no erosion. You may have to realign the track.”
watching video See above to learn more about how land subsidence is putting U.S. infrastructure at risk and how much it might cost to fix the problem.
