Shanghai highrises could worsen rising seas threat

[Dover]

The following feature is part of a global series looking at megacities and water as part the environment summit from Oct 6-8

By Rujun Shen

SHANGHAI, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Shanghai, China's most populous city and an aspiring global financial centre, is also among the world's most vulnerable urban areas to a rise in sea levels as global warming melts polar ice.

Its location on a low-lying alluvial plain near the mouth of Asia's longest river, the Yangtze, had already left it prone, but researchers warn that forests of skyscrapers sprouting across the ambitious metropolis could compound the threat by causing its marshy ground to sink.

"Shanghai came from the ocean, and has been facing the threat of rising sea levels," said Wang Pingxian, a member of the prestigious China Academy of Sciences and professor of ocean geology at Tongji University in Shanghai.

"The rising sea level is a worldwide problem, caused by global warming, but Shanghai and Tianjin, among China's coastal cities, face the biggest challenge, mainly because of land subsidence," Wang said as part of the Reuters Global Environment Summit.

Sinking ground levels have long been a headache for Shanghai, although the culprit has traditionally been the pumping of ground water to support its rapid growth and industrialisation...>

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP280958.htm


For other news from the Reuters Global Environment Summit, click on http://www.reuters.com/summit/GlobalEnvironment08?pid=500