Major Asian Cities Are Sinking Under Climate Change
Jakarta is sinking. Fast. And they’re running out of time.
In 2019, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced the impending move of the country’s administrative capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan on Borneo island. While government officials leave the current capital, about 40 percent of Jakarta is below sea level and some portions of the huge metropolis are sinking at a rate of about eight inches per year.
“The potential for Jakarta to be submerged isn’t a laughing matter. If we look at our models, by 2050 about 95% of North Jakarta will be submerged,” reported Heri Andreas, a researcher and lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology, in a 2018 BBC article Jakarta, the fastest-sinking city in the world.
The low-lying coastal city isn’t only gravely threatened by rising sea levels, but it is also literally sinking into the ground, as its residents pump out their drinking water from natural, below-ground pools called aquifers. When the water below ground decreases, the solid ground above it sinks, often bringing down buildings and whatever else is on the ground above. Subsidence is the process in which an area of land gradually sinks.
“The walkways are like waves, curving up and down, people can trip and fall,” described one resident…
