Posted on 10/06/2008 8:41:11 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Shanghai highrises could worsen threat of rising seas
By Rujun Shen Sun Oct 5, 9:26 PM ET
Shanghai, China's most populous city and an aspiring global financial center, is also among the world's most vulnerable urban areas to a rise in sea levels as global warming melts polar ice.
Its location on a low-lying alluvial plain near the mouth of Asia's longest river, the Yangtze, had already left it prone, but researchers warn that forests of skyscrapers sprouting across the ambitious metropolis could compound the threat by causing its marshy ground to sink.
"Shanghai came from the ocean, and has been facing the threat of rising sea levels," said Wang Pingxian, a member of the prestigious China Academy of Sciences and professor of ocean geology at Tongji University in Shanghai.
"The rising sea level is a worldwide problem, caused by global warming, but Shanghai and Tianjin, among China's coastal cities, face the biggest challenge, mainly because of land subsidence," Wang said as part of the Reuters Global Environment Summit.
Sinking ground levels have long been a headache for Shanghai, although the culprit has traditionally been the pumping of ground water to support its rapid growth and industrialization.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping!
Guess China ought to stop burning that coal.
My ex was from Shanghai, and told me about how a while ago the Bund did start sinking. They had to bring in engineers to shore it up. Given the staggering amount of construction there in the past 10 years, it would not at all surprise me if the city started having subsidence problems again. Maybe they should just let it sink, and become the Venice of the east.
they have too many short buildings. I would ask for help from the dutch, not from New Orleans.
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