South Floridas Beachfront Buildings Sinking Faster Than Expected, Research Finds [Video]

A team of scientists in Germany and the United States has found that many tall, heavy buildings along South Florida’s coast are sinking into the earth much faster than expected.

The researchers compared several years of satellite images to glean more information about continuing subsidence — where the altitude of a piece of land becomes lower — along a number of South Florida beachfronts, reported Phys.org.

“This study utilizes Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) to examine subsidence along the coastal strip of the Miami barrier islands from 2016 to 2023. Using Sentinel-1 data, we document vertical displacements ranging from 2 to 8 cm, affecting a total of 35 coastal buildings and their vicinity. About half of the subsiding structures are younger than 2014 and at the majority of them subsidence decays with time. This correlation suggests that the subsidence is related to construction activities,” the authors of the study wrote.

Earlier research had revealed that subsidence can be caused …