Mexico City Sinking Faster than Venice

[monsoon]

[Allan]

Yeah. I believe that highrise development in Shanghai was halted for similar reasons. Also, I remember hearing something about how Phoenix is begining to sink because people are drawing water out of the aquifers like three times faster than they can be replenished.

[PghUSA]

Wow! Thanks for the update here, I have always been fascinated by Mexico City's ecology, it is very unique and unlike most "new world" cities you can really trace the ecologological history of the place with how civilzation (even under the indians) has affected it.

Florida has this problem also, being nothing more then a pile of sand dunes sticking out into the Gulf/Atlantic. Sink holes happen about every month down there someplace, very few cellars the water aquifers are so close to the surface, also in many coastal regions (really the whole state could be considered that) the water demand has dried out the aquifers to such an extent that saltwater invades them and it becomes brackish and too expensive to use, the whole county of Pinellas about 15 years ago shut down its water treatment operations because of brackish invasion, the whole county is now dependent on other governments for their supplies. Its sad.

Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley have had problems with old coal mines collapsing in a sort of sink hole but the pollution isn't salt water up here its the mercury and iron from the old mines seeps out into the creeks and rivers. Dead rivers all up and down the Ohio Valley because of that. Some beautiful restorations though like the Kiski River NE of Pittsburgh.

Water definitely is becoming the next precious resource, the technology industry uses it as a lifeblood.

[urbanaturalist]

thats a damn shame how their drying up the acquifers and sinking.......thats ranks up there with another scary over extraction of water.......I read one about the Dead Sea and how it has shrunk in size like the Aral Sea did in the Soviet Union.....and not only are reasons b/se people in the big cities like Tel Aviv and farmers need it, but companies are extracting minerals from the water with impunity and protection by the government.....mainly b/se it provides a lot of jobs....................Jobs over the Environment........same story............anyway.....MC should figure out a way to get freshwater back in those acquifers......piping in some freshwater from desalintation plants along either the Gulf or Pacific would be a lil to much though huh?!

[9thWonder]

Wow. Well the spanish did build Mexico City, over a lake. Over the aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

[Snowguy716]

Meanwhile, our problem is the opposite.

We watch year after year (except this year) as the water in our lakes spill over their banks and overtake yards.. rivers flood 1000 year floods (Red River of the North in 1997 after record snowfall all throughout the winter), and fields turn into swamps and swamps into lakes.

Something is changing and it certainly isn't favoring us!

[Ruso]

A rather interesting prediction of NO's drowning.

[italimex]

Mexico City was built by spaniards conquers over the ruins of the Aztec City of Tenochtitlan, which was erected over artificial islands on the lake of Texcoco.

Aztec people had a very well knowledge of hydraullic enginnering and built dams, drainages and bridges to prevent the city of floods and dry.

But all that was destructed by conquers and for more than 300 years, spaniards drained almost the whole lake.

Besides that "terrorist" atack, they built big and heavy stone and brick buildings like the Cathedral and many palaces all around the area were the lake was one day.

Therefore that action is causing that Mexico City is sinking with high cost on building maintenance.