Hi r/climate, this is Lucy from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story about a phenomenon that has been ongoing for more than a century: Mexico City is sinking at an alarming rate.
*From our story:*
The metropolis’s descent is being tracked in real time thanks to one of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space. Known as Nisar, the satellite can detect minute changes in Earth’s surface, even through thick vegetation or cloud cover.
Though not the first time that Mexico City’s sinking has been observed from space, the Nisar mission has provided a greater sense of how far the sinking spreads and how it changes across different types of land than any other space-based sensor. According to Nasa, the technology is also capable of monitoring the climate crisis, glacier sliding, agricultural productivity, soil moisture, forestry, coastal flooding and more.
First documented in 1925, the city’s sinking is a result of centuries of exploitation of the groundwater. Because Mexico City and its surrounds were built on an ancient lake bed, the soil beneath the city is extremely soft. When water is pumped out of the aquifer below, this clay-like earth compacts, resulting in a city that is quietly sinking.
The underground aquifer still contributes about half of the capital’s water supply. As pumping of the groundwater has increased, the aquifer’s shrinking has intensified, with the water table now contracting by about 40cm a year.
This creates a vicious cycle: as the city sinks in on itself, the ageing pipes that pump water across the urban centre end up cracked and broken, with the capital losing an estimated 40% of its water due to leakage. Add to that the climate crisis, which has resulted in years of low rainfall, and the metropolis may be hurtling towards a disaster scenario in which taps in swaths of the city run dry.
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Hi r/climate, this is Lucy from The Guardian. We wanted to share this story about a phenomenon that has been ongoing for more than a century: Mexico City is sinking at an alarming rate.
*From our story:*
The metropolis’s descent is being tracked in real time thanks to one of the most powerful radar systems ever launched into space. Known as Nisar, the satellite can detect minute changes in Earth’s surface, even through thick vegetation or cloud cover.
Though not the first time that Mexico City’s sinking has been observed from space, the Nisar mission has provided a greater sense of how far the sinking spreads and how it changes across different types of land than any other space-based sensor. According to Nasa, the technology is also capable of monitoring the climate crisis, glacier sliding, agricultural productivity, soil moisture, forestry, coastal flooding and more.
First documented in 1925, the city’s sinking is a result of centuries of exploitation of the groundwater. Because Mexico City and its surrounds were built on an ancient lake bed, the soil beneath the city is extremely soft. When water is pumped out of the aquifer below, this clay-like earth compacts, resulting in a city that is quietly sinking.
The underground aquifer still contributes about half of the capital’s water supply. As pumping of the groundwater has increased, the aquifer’s shrinking has intensified, with the water table now contracting by about 40cm a year.
This creates a vicious cycle: as the city sinks in on itself, the ageing pipes that pump water across the urban centre end up cracked and broken, with the capital losing an estimated 40% of its water due to leakage. Add to that the climate crisis, which has resulted in years of low rainfall, and the metropolis may be hurtling towards a disaster scenario in which taps in swaths of the city run dry.
[You can read the full story for free here.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/mexico-city-sinking-subsidence-2cm-a-month-nasa-nisar?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct)