Delta Subsidence: An Imminent Threat to Coastal Populations.

Abstract

Sea-level rise from a warming climate threatens to inundate coastlines around the world.1 But some of the world’s most vulnerable coasts—those fringing flat delta plains, mainly in Southeast Asia—face the far more immediate threat of sinking land.2 Induced mainly by human activities on a local rather than global scale, this phenomenon, known as land subsidence, can outpace sea-level rise substantially. Indonesia’s biggest city, Jakarta, is sinking at an average rate of 5–10 cm per year,3 much faster than the global rate of sea-level rise, which clocks in at 3.2 mm per year, according to the recent estimates.1 Should subsidence in Jakarta continue unabated, the city could sink up to 6 m by the end of the century, according to JanJaap Brinkman, a water management specialist with Deltares Research Institute in Delft, the Netherlands.