SINKING CITIES

Do you know that cities around the world are sinking? Cities built with cutting edge architectural knowhow, not communities built on stilts. Last Sunday, November 19, 2017, I was flipping through TV channels to get an interesting program to watch. I run into a Germany DW documentary. The documentary highlighted the flooding of coastal cities around the world. One of the reasons coastal cities are getting flooded, according to the documentary, is that the cities are sinking, as water levels are rising!

The purpose of this post is to share with you the story in a reengineered form. The idea is to keep you abreast with trends in the natural environment that should galvanized you to put in efforts to help clinch a sustainable, clean and natural environment. The activities of man in order to live off the natural environment in a balanced manner, as it is intended to be, is rather pushing the natural environment to a tipping point. This post, as are other tools of other environmentalists, is a rallying cry to put the natural environment on a balance flux, using materials in the natural environment without causing imbalance.

The sinking of the coastal cities is technically called subsidence. It means the cities are gradually sinking to a lower level. It is as though mother Earth is sucking the cities into its bowels, at a slow pace. I am going to give you a list of some of the sinking cities around the world so as to give you an idea of the scope of the phenomenon, as follows:

NO	CITY	CONTINENT
01	London, England	Europe
02	Venice, Italy	Europe
03	New York City, New York, USA	North America
04	Long Beach-Los Angeles, USA	North America
05	San Joaquin Valley, California, USA	North America
06	San Jose, California, USA	North America
07	Houston, Texas, USA	North America
08	New Orleans, Louisiana, USA	North America
09	Mexico City, Mexico	North America
10	Tokyo, Japan	Asia
11	Osaka, Japan	Asia
12	Niigata, Japan	Asia
13	Nagoya, Japan	Asia
14	Shanghai, China	Asia
15	Taipei, China	Asia
16	Bangkok, Thailand	Asia
17	Manila, Philippines	Asia
18	Lagos	Africa
19	Alexandria, Egypt	Africa
20	St. Louis, Senegal	Africa

Subsidence or sinking of cities is caused by two main factors. The two causative factors are natural and manmade. One of the natural factors is sedimentation. I should focus on the manmade factors as the tear and wear the natural environment is generally attributed to the activities of man. The manmade factors are mining, extraction of oil and extraction of water from the bowels of planet Earth for industrial and domestic use.

A complication for sinking cities is that while they are sinking because of mining and extraction of water from the bowels of mother Earth, sea levels are rising due to climate change. So, during hurricanes and also because of melting icebergs sinking cities get flooded easily. The worst case scenario is that sinking cities could be submerged if a reversal of subsidence and climate change is not effected in a timely manner.

In all this what stands out is the human causative factor. On the side of sinking cities it is caused by the extraction of water and oil from the bowels of mother Earth and mining, by man. On the side of rising sea levels it is also caused by the activities of man- the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere cause increase in the surface temperature of planet Earth. With the increase in surface temperature of planet Earth icebergs could no more hold their own. They liquefy from ice to water, hence rising sea levels.

Migration to cities continue to increase, putting pressure on resources like water which is a basic human necessity. I am typing this post lying on my bed in a house close to the Atlantic Ocean. In this house I need and use water. I need water to drink to keep the right amount of water in my body for metabolism. I need water to wash myself to maintain the required personal hygiene. I need water to cook food to eat for nourishment. I need water to wash my clothes and other personal effects. All these are basic human needs, which means you need them too. The source of the water you need daily in your house may come from the bowels of the Earth!

What is manifesting itself in this story is that there is no balance between what you and I take out of the natural environment and what we put back into it, underpinning the philosophy espoused in paragraph two.  An example in this instance is that the amount of water taken out of the bowel of mother Earth is not replaced as such thus creating a collapse in the bowels of the Earth.  This results in the sinking of the cities sitting on top of the bowels of the Earth.

Going forward man has to rethink architecture critically. Man has to factor into architecture the delicacy of balance- balance between the natural environment and built environment. Man ought to be reminded that they cannot have their way with the natural environment willy-nilly.  These sinking coastal cities are built on water ways, disrupting the flow of rivers naturally, resulting in floods.

Knowing where we have gone wrong, you and I need to continue to come up with strategies for a clean and balanced natural environment in a sustainable way, if our civilization is to avoid extinction.