From deadly, destructive fires in the West to major snowstorms across the Mid-Atlantic and South, extreme weather events have dominated these first few weeks of 2025. Among other causes, the influence of climate change in the uptick of such destructive events is a topic that has been spotlighted by many. Yet, climate change’s effects extend beyond immediate weather events into other harmful but perhaps less obvious phenomena. One such phenomenon is land subsidence: the sinking of the ground as the materials below are disturbed. While a natural occurrence, subsidence has been exacerbated by heavy extraction of ground materials and other manmade causes.
Researchers from Virginia Tech and the U.S. Geological Survey explored how land subsidence has accelerated in recent decades by measuring the vertical land motion — how much the ground’s elevation has changed — as compiled from satellite datasets. The study focused on the communities and infrastructure across the East Coast, spanning 12 metropolitan cities from Boston, Mass. to Miami, Fla., as well as 172 counties.
Suffolk County, which is home to Boston, was found to have a rate higher than 0 millimeters per year of subsidence in roughly 54% of its land area, while Middlesex County, Mass. — where the Medford/Somerville campus is located — was found to have a rate of higher than 0 millimeters per year in nearly 20% of the county’s area.
While these numbers don’t reach the high rates of almost 5 millimeters per year seen in counties within South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, the study defines any rate of a magnitude greater than 0 millimeters a year as substantial.
Land subsidence can increase and worsen extreme weather events like floods, especially when considering how subsidence exacerbates the already present rise of sea levels due to global warming. In an interview with GBH, James Heiss, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, explains that subsidence contributes roughly 15% to the rise of sea levels and thus predicts that the number of king tide flooding events a year could increase from 15 to 50 by 2050.
Subsidence also has the potential to damage essential infrastructure — a matter that could cause a whole host of subsequent problems, possibly harming the economy, transportation, the availability of necessities and even human lives.
Ultimately, Boston — or any of the East Coast cities — is not exactly on track to becoming the next lost city of Atlantis. Yet, understanding land subsidence and how it is both exacerbated by climate change and, in turn, exacerbates the effects of climate change is key in making future policies to mitigate extreme events.
