always cracks me up that "small" cities in China have the same population as my entire country

It is often overlooked that urbanization covers the land with impermeable roofs and streets. So the rain water is prevented from percolating into the earth. This creates paradoxical floods even in cities that are in drought conditions. Any little rain that falls overwhelms the drainage, because it is no longer absorbed into the ground.

"The Unbearable Weight Burden of Your Butt"

I think the craziest place this is happening is in Mexico City, where the rate of subsidence is massive and the whole city is built over one of the worst chosen locations for a megacity, a lake.

There is a similar issue in industrialized West Germany in the Ruhr area, from which black coal had been extracted for a very long time, and in some places it is still ongoing. As a side effect the entire area had to manage just this sinking of the land by a sophisticated water infrastructure, and there are areas in which houses face damages because of the sinking ground. But this makes no headlines, and beyond the local area, in Germany, this remains rather unknown, and I came to know it only when I moved there for some time for a job. This problem is, like in China, 100 years old, and locals are just used to it. With the explanations from this video, I would assume the same problem exists pretty everywhere where heavy industry and/or water supply overused the land beyond repair.

It could also be ignored or inadequate Chinese building standards. As a professional hydrogeologist, you've completed a well documented report.

Germany has also that Problem. But not because the extraction of water but of coal. Some cities in North Rhine Westphalia would be meters deep on the bottom of lakes without pumps running for 24/7 for the next eternity.

1:12 San Joaquin Valley, California (in this photo) used to be largely covered by a massive lake (largest west of the Mississippi) and surrounding marshlands, but after we diverted the water to LA and other cities, it became a dry, parched environment. That’s why the ground sank so much. Ironically, after the unusually large rains last year, the farmland where the lake used to be flooded and we got Tulare Lake back for a time.

Most ground water extraction is for agriculture and industry rather than for drinking water.

Cats? I wonder what the weight of all the cats in China is.

Subsidence can also cause local apparent sea-level trends to greatly differ from the widely advertised (but actually very slow) global rate. However, subsidence isn't always caused by groundwater pumping. Oil and gas extraction can also cause subsidence. More importantly, natural processes, like post-glacial rebound, can cause uplift in some places and subsidence in others. Ironically, Greta's Thunberg's hometown of Stockholm is one such place. Uplift there is about triple the global sea-level rise rate, so the local "relative" sea-level trend at Stockholm Harbour is downward, rather than upward. (It is a minor contributor to their periodic dredging expenses.)

The most common cause of subsidence is poor government planning, regulation, and enforcement.

lol it's not often to see "References and sources go here" at 10:34

You have very interesting subjects for your videos. Keep them coming.

In the suburban area that I live in Colorado, subsidence is connected with the area's past underground coal mining industry. There are fields on which they won't even build roads even though they would help traffic patterns. There are awkward breaks in the pattern of sub division housing for parks and openspace that don't fit in with the aesthetics of urban planning. Some significant parts of a major mall were torn down a few years after construction as the buildings were condemned.

In Bangalore, India, Rain water harvesting for every home is made compulsory. Without it that building does not get building permit.

Great research. 👏🏼 One question: How huge the sink has to be to be considered a result of excessive groundwater drain? We are seeing a lot of these in India lately. Most of the groundwater is used for farming. The government tried making some laws that would make people use lesser groundwater but it was protested against and now we're seeing a few sinkholes. I think the reason is the same as you explained.

Love that he lets his curiosity lead this channel. Keep it up.

They’re transporting water by train recently too.

Shipping water across vast distances via canals reminds me of a proposed project where Nevada wanted British Columbia to flood most of the Rocky Mountain trench and pipe the water down to the Vegas area. It was of course rejected, not least of all because it would result in a massive waste of water through evaporation, in much the same way that long-distance electricity transmission results in increased bleed-off of energy. These huge mega-projects remind me of a book by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy on the Soviet attempts to "conquer" the Arctic through sheer force of will. There will be costs to this kind of hubris. The lost Aral Sea is a testament to the unintended consequences of playing around with water on this scale.

2:08 the sinking caused by buildings are local, only in the close area to the building. For example, a 100 stories building weighs more or less 50 t/m2 and this is equivalent to remove approx 20m of soil for the basement to build the underground garages and to compensate the building weight. A tall building with underground garajes may compensate the majority of its weight.

Some hugely important information in this. Good work. Liked and shared.

love the little bird noises in the background now, gives it a comfy vibe

You mentioned synthetic aperture radar. I got a great lecture on this from the great Dr John McDonald, of Donald Detwiler and Associates the satellite technology company. His displays and slideshow showed the results of what mountain ranges look like infrastructure and could even identify the differences in crops from the chaff left behind it, including between legumes and peas. If I was standing on those crops I don't think I'd know the difference honestly. One of the examples he showed of lands in uplift was over volcanic regions where underground magma Chambers were filling or emptying. Amazing accuracy to within an inch

Thanks for the helpful and fascinating overview.

Him: small Chinese city Also him : population 11 million 🤯🤯

it's also a big problem in the Netherland. The peets in the ground are "rusting" away :(

hah, I knew it, living in an old mining area there are citys that are like 10m below their old height because of all the water pumped out to keep the mines dry

Thank you for the awesome video, I really love these ones about water.

The story of China is the story of water. Dynasties have fallen from draughts and floods, and the regimes attempt to tame it.

MODFLOW…hmmmm, that gives me pause. Our Host’s “Accuracies vary” refers to the various models to calculate subsidence, and in the case of MODFLOW, that description is an understatement. Keep in mind, good modeling requires good data. Otherwise a result might be garbage in, garbage out. MODFLOW is a finite difference model, not based on the more robust finite element approach. There are various “packages” to expand its capabilities, of which subsidence (SUB) is one. The packages are add-ons, versus inherently integrated calculations. These factors result in limitations to applying the model/packages to some real world situations or generate instability and variable results. While I have not used SUB, I’ve used MODFLOW and a number of the other packages. The use of packages is often problematic. Why is MODFLOW so widely used? Because of momentum and the difficulty in writing a quality finite element model to replace it, which is long overdue in my opinion.

Fantastic video. Really interesting. Thank you

Another brilliant one and I'm half way thru

0:58 missed opportunity for a "your mom" joke

Missed the chance to “the unbearable weight burden of your mum” joke

A big issue with the south to north water project is that the water quality is abysmal.

I'm more worried about that U.F.O. at 9:52. ha ha.

Watching these is like going to school again. Why do I do this? Why do I enjoy this? I am 57 years old... BTW, thx for doing these!

My god. That was the sassiest introduction to a video about a geological event I've ever seen in my life.

Water and flood control has always been a major issue throughout Chinese history.

Thanks. Keep up the good work.

You missed the biggest poster child of them all: Venice, Italy

You apparently took the whole City Prefecture population for Shijiazhuang. It is in fact 5.090.440 - two times smaller than the District population, still big enough. You can use CityPopulation and other sources to estimate actual built-up population. We have a similar problem in ex USSR particularly in three places - Moldova (there the sinkholes are called Hırtop), Perm land and Donbass region. In Perm land the issue is very unique - salt mining. During USSR, a water grid was indeed constructed at full, but only for European part of the country, and some places of this grid are already being abandoned due to artificial borders. For example, water issues between UZ and TM led to Aral Sea disaster, and in Belarus, the Bug-Desna channel is almost abandoned. In Ukraine, the Dnepr-Donbass channel between Orel' and Seversky Donetz is/was almost at full capacity and needs to be heavily refurbished as this state never bothered to maintain its Soviet infrastructure legacy. In Russia the state of Unified Deep-water Transit System is much better, and the whole european part of the country is linked together. You even can transfer submarines from one sea to another. However, the channel which previously existed in Sverdlovsk region between Kama and Ob' basins is almost abandoned and does not allow for quick transfers of large amounts of water or of vessels from water-plentiful and almost unused Ob' basin to the European part. Same abandoned channel exists between Ob' and Yenisey water basins. If they would be repaired and refurbished, almost 70% of the area of the country would allow for quick fleet and water transfers. China, on the other hand, tries to connect even to the small 'butt-end' of İrtış which starts actually in China before going into what was Soviet territory. It might lead to the decrease of the share of İrtış in the Ob' river basin as a whole.

This video was excellent! Thank you! I've heard of land subsidence issues in some heavily urbanized areas before. I think it might be worthwhile for modern society to look into ways of decentralizing a bit to combat overcrowding, sea level rise, land subsidence, and such. But, that's just my two cents, and it might cause more issues than it solves. I'm not a civil engineer or urban planner, so I'm just speculating. God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)

Three key points that were unmentioned; The quality of China's freshwater is abysmal. Very little of it is fit for human consumption, and a large fraction isn't even safe for agricultural use as it's too contaminated with factory runoff. That puts more pressure on ground water, as fewer surface sources are safe to use. Secondly, is just how inefficient and water intensive Chinese agriculture is. They have low mechanization, and still use gravity surface irrigation. Not to mention how water intensive rice is as a crop in general. Third, The Water transfer project is highly unlikely to actually be able to move as much water as they want, primarily due to evaporation. They built as wide, shallow, relatively slow flowing canal, so a large proportion of the water they direct into it wont actually reach the north. It's a huge expense for a band-aid at best.

I know I saw that India was doing double duty on major water canal projects to add solar over them to reduce evaporation. I didn’t notice a single pic here showing similar. I hope they consider it.

6:00 if only the US could build the great lakes pipeline... instead we have to deal with water restrictions.

It is happening everywhere around the world. UK: 1. London: - Subsidence rate: up to 1 mm/year (0.04 in/year) (source: British Geological Survey) - Affected areas: Central London, Lambeth, and Westminster 2. Manchester: - Subsidence rate: up to 2 mm/year (0.08 in/year) (source: British Geological Survey) - Affected areas: City center and surrounding areas 3. Birmingham: - Subsidence rate: up to 1.5 mm/year (0.06 in/year) (source: British Geological Survey) - Affected areas: City center and nearby neighborhoods EU: 1. Amsterdam, Netherlands: - Subsidence rate: up to 2 mm/year (0.08 in/year) (source: Deltares) - Affected areas: City center and surrounding areas 2. Rotterdam, Netherlands: - Subsidence rate: up to 1.5 mm/year (0.06 in/year) (source: Deltares) - Affected areas: City center and nearby neighborhoods 3. Brussels, Belgium: - Subsidence rate: up to 1 mm/year (0.04 in/year) (source: Royal Observatory of Belgium) - Affected areas: City center and surrounding areas 4. Paris, France: - Subsidence rate: up to 0.5 mm/year (0.02 in/year) (source: BRGM) - Affected areas: City center and nearby neighborhoods 5. Berlin, Germany: - Subsidence rate: up to 0.5 mm/year (0.02 in/year) (source: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences) - Affected areas: City center and surrounding areas USA 1. New Orleans, Louisiana: - Subsidence rate: up to 20 mm/year (0.8 in/year) (source: NASA) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Lower Ninth Ward and Metairie 2. Houston, Texas: - Subsidence rate: up to 30 mm/year (1.2 in/year) (source: NASA) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Houston Ship Channel and nearby neighborhoods 3. San Francisco, California: - Subsidence rate: up to 5 mm/year (0.2 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the San Francisco Bay Area and Treasure Island 4. Los Angeles, California: - Subsidence rate: up to 3 mm/year (0.12 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Los Angeles Basin and nearby neighborhoods 5. Phoenix, Arizona: - Subsidence rate: up to 5 mm/year (0.2 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Phoenix Basin and nearby neighborhoods 6. Las Vegas, Nevada: - Subsidence rate: up to 3 mm/year (0.12 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Las Vegas Valley and nearby neighborhoods 7. New York City, New York: - Subsidence rate: up to 1 mm/year (0.04 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in Manhattan and nearby neighborhoods 8. Chicago, Illinois: - Subsidence rate: up to 2 mm/year (0.08 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Chicago Loop and nearby neighborhoods 9. Miami, Florida: - Subsidence rate: up to 2 mm/year (0.08 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Miami Beach and nearby neighborhoods 10. Seattle, Washington: - Subsidence rate: up to 1 mm/year (0.04 in/year) (source: USGS) - Affected areas: Citywide, with highest rates in the Seattle Basin and nearby neighborhoods

That's not exactly accurate saying the US doesn't invest in water. A poor and corrupt Flint doesn't rep the country. It's certainly not comparable to China level issues with water. Utilities and consumers bear the cost that the 50 billion the US Federal Gov throws back to states.

Your articles are most interesting. I enjoy the concise and succinct information conveyed. Well done Asianometry.

land subsidence is going to become a massive issue over the next few decades as aquifers across the world are drained

8:02 where is this profile transect on a map?

Thanks for reporting on this worldwide problem, I really had no idea.

I just noticed, you speak in a similar tone as Nile Red

The north south transfer project also evaporates 70% of the water before it gets to it's intended destination.

If I remember correctly all the water we have pumped out have altered Earth's tilt slightly. It is basically a gigantic spinning top and we remove material from random spots.

0:58 missed chance for a yo mama joke

7:31 Clockie spotted

Do you even Remove Water for Geothermal ? I thought they would pump water into the Ground and that gets Heated. 😅

California got the same problem. New York too

Cap and Trade - we pay more and use less so others can use more and pay less.

Same thing is happening in California; there is a marker of where the land was in like 1900, and now its like a full story or two below that mark. Crazy!

Awesome video😊

0:30 that is not subsidence. The road is pushed out of the ground.

Thanks for the video ☺️. Your objectivity is soothing after the rest of the internet has been so diluted with opinions. Don't change please. 🐙 Cthulu approves!

Very different subsidence phenomena, but large areas of Europe are suffering from Geotechnical rebound from the kilometres of ice cover during ice age, whole of Britain is tilting back higher NW lifting up lower SE going down line Humber to Sevens mouth. Also the whole of the Netherlands is going down.

Ok, but ground water extraction has to be countered by the recharge back into the ground. So, it seems they need to increase their efforts to improve the management of aquifer recharge. Thanks for the very informative video!

I am certain the government is reducing water consumption as well considering the country even fights food waste in restaurants

Very interesting as always, and well balanced. Love your now regular insert of one or 2 explosive cynical humor sentences 😂👏💪

California central valley also sinks with great speed. We probably should ban open air agriculture. And move all farm into large factories to better recycle the water used

Metal Gear Xolid Subsidence

Haha like your butt. I love when he injects humour into the well researched info

Thanks

I always like a nice cold glass of ground water to go with my ground beef.

You pronounce like a real chinese! Impressive. I didn't know any of this, very interesting!

Regarding the point past 13:20, ground water extraction per se should not result in subsidence IF the natural (and possible human induced) recharge rate is not exceeded by the ground water extraction rate. Subsidence depends on extraction exceeding recharge, which can be seasonally dependent. Yes, too many humans over-extract natural resources…though we already knew that.

Subsidence and tofu dreg construction, recipe for utter disaster.

Shiziajuang is a logistical center, from there the rails go to central asia and europe, and it has lots of car and train industry!

Why doesn't Florida, with three coastlines, have ten or more desalination plants?

The American Southwest is in a similar bind and is running out of water.

Dont forget silt covering any air cacks that could break vapor locks and relieve the wide vacuum of falling water in high and low aquifeds and fhe moon's tidal force lifting and even worse low tide pulling on the water in the chambers, sicking tight together those surface silts trying to suck it through the old and rusty un used wells.. and those active wells also causing suction through those old groves and ancient city wells pipes gone dry the the full moon pulling up on it and washing the crubling blocks caused by the square grid of wells drilled.. like a granite quarry's bore holes, but up side down and the weight of those compressed clay blocks as well as vaccum infusion along those sand stones and clay..and when they drop to the bottom it puts more water pressure to the capped wells lines cracks and fissures some places it could be 200 feet drops untill the blocks falling fill the initial deep hollow caverns or water filled caverns you call and I too call Aquifers and under ground rivers.. .. and if the Anti Communist rebels find all of the old test boars and put charges in them and blow out and frature or fill the caverns with the natural gas and spark plug them or ligh t with flares .. the pipe heat will dry and crumble the lime stone around those well pipes, even simple lense effect spinning magnets a d lightning rod ground wires and or load and ground wires from alternating current 20 to 30 feet apart soldered on screens and put down the pipe with a concrete filled in over it then the other 50 or more fèet or at the top will hest like a broken fuse.. hard wired to the main wire and not the fuse block would get them as hot as oven coils.. and increase the sand and clay crumbling.. Imagine each of those city blocks is a set of 200 ft deep wells that make up 100 feet or more deep sized blocks and the vaccum pressure also wants to suck them down into the hole of the cavern way down below.. and then the moon also pulls on all that water and earth and wet clay or the granite that has frozen and cracked or rust of the pipes has opened the point to point pattern and then some space rod falls really fast in fhe central keystone point and punches several blocks right down into the hole..and then all the others fall ln front the inside out and all of the mud and silt to the side slides into the center of the bowl,or so e crazy kids starved for food and bug repelant and pain killers and some good spices packages got in there like granite quarry demolitions experts special forces and hung high explosives all the way down to the bottom of the aquifer floor and up the pipes all the way like the Dirty Dozen Movie with Jim Brown the Old Football Player who was in that movie... but did it all over the agriculture lands also... and all at once in many areas, they depth charge the aquifer and the pipes and it lifts and splits with the explosions it the water and continues up the pipes, blowing wide cracks the water expanding also is shooting up through... and all of it faling and giving the water all over a place to shoot up to the surface .. some might on fall against each other and pinch bit the next tide and aquifer level drop will suck the sand and rubbles down, and each rain or minorflood might be the last everyons in that city sees as the buildings topple and fall in many directions onto one another as all foundations have been washed out.. even stiff breezes leveraging the buidlings bases in a storm,opening and closing and twisting the pipes and comapcted spils into sands powder again.. soo many compounding factors and if not all fixed at once it will be forever dangerous and unlivable .

I knew it's a problem, but damn I didn't know how much damage we do.

It's worth mentioning that Chinese agriculture still uses massive flood irrigation which is tremendously water-inefficient, especially on the North China Plain. But the communists will not let a market price mechanism dissuade excess use, so mass aquifer extraction and devastating South-North transfer goes ahead (tremendous flooding is attributable to the concentration of water flows into these canals).

I'm sure Hank Johnson can explain this. He's an expert on hydrology and geophysics.

7:14. I m from hong kong and we do not use groundwater at all as much of it comes from China's water supply and reservoirs in hong kong, so it s kind of strange to see it s on the list and apparently ranked just slightly better than others like shanghai. It would be nice to see tokyo and other global cities for reference, particularly those that do not use groundwater.

It remains me of Venice, Italy when they build Venecia Mestre terminals they pump out massive amounts of water and the legacy Venice city started to sink very very fast since then. You mention it fast but it was a huge mistake very expensive to repair now. Pumping the water in now is almost and impossible task. Very interesting video.

Too much extraction or sunction of ground water for people consumption at heavy load of infrastracture cause the sinking of land...

Recently in Foshan China a Commercial Building was shaking without any apparent reason. Maybe it was due to ground water issues.

I wonder how major Australian capital cities are doing, subsidence wise... 🇦🇺

I admire your knowledge in every sense. You can explain complex topics in a way that is easy to understand. I thought you were using AI to do it, but long before AI became popular, you were already creating content like this.

This is also a problem in Florida 😞

Its the lack of strength in its infrastructure and everything else come on the 3 gorges dam is already moving not long now before a catestrophic fail

HOLY, I did not know Shijiazhuang had THAT many people.

“The unbearable weight of your butt” you know what …

Haven't the sold all the water to Nestle yet?

Pollution not addressed

Also north side of jakarta and semarang.

The dutch: "hah..wait..you seriously let water levels dictate your infrastructure!?"

Geothermal water is returned to the ground.

That's because they love so much WATER