The toll of urbanization in China has been documented in a new paper published in the journal Science by a team of researchers from different institutions around the country. Using a method called spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (or InSAR), they were able to establish the rate at which land is subsiding in major cities, affecting over a third (36%) of the country's urban population.

The paper's abstract states that 45% of metro areas surveyed are now subsiding faster than 3 millimeters per year, with another 16% subsiding faster than 10 millimeters per year. By 2120, upwards of 26% of all coastal lands will have elevations below sea level. The source of the sinking is the combined weight of buildings and the depletion of groundwater around urban areas. "Our results underscore the necessity of enhancing protective measures to mitigate potential damages from subsidence," the authors stated.

These latest findings could potentially have bearings on the work of Turenscape founder Kongjian Yu and other Chinese urbanists whose work on "sponge cities" and related flood mitigation measures was profiled by NPR last year.