A new study from the Columbia Climate School has revealed a stark reality facing the United States: all of the nation’s largest cities, including several in Texas, are sinking.
The primary culprit? Decades of allegedly unchecked groundwater pumping.
Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin all appear high in the report, which analyzed “vertical land movement” in the 28 biggest cities in America using satellite data. The data, published in a peer-reviewed journal, shows that over 40% of Houston is sinking more than 5 millimeters (about 0.2 inches) per year – more than any other major city in the country.
In some areas around Houston, the sinking rate is up to 2 inches annually.
But Houston isn’t alone.
San Antonio and Fort Worth are also experiencing fast-sinking areas, while Dallas, Austin, and inland regions of Texas are showing measurable land subsidence linked mostly to human activity, again focusing on groundwater extraction.
Researchers further claim that about 80% of the subsidence or sinking is due to groundwater withdrawals, where removing water from aquifers causes the land above to compact and sink down. In Texas, this effect is magnified by large-scale oil and gas pumping, which obviously destabilizes underground layers of soil.
“Over time, this subsidence can produce stresses on infrastructure that will go past their safety limit,” said Leonard Ohenhen, a researcher at the Columbia Climate School.
Ohenhen also warned that as Texas cities continue to grow, they will likely expand into already compromised areas, risking damage to roads, buildings, and pipelines.
Texas cities also rank among the eight U.S. metro areas where more than 60% of residents live on sinking land. These eight cities, including Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, have experienced more than 90 significant floods since 2000, a pattern that some researchers have also linked to subsidence.
The report also suggests that America’s largest cities should adopt strategies such as greener infrastructure, land-raising projects, and updated building codes that account for sinking or subsidence risks. Limiting new construction in certain vulnerable areas and improving water management could also help slow sinking trends.