Publication: Washington Post

UCLA Expert: Kian Goh: Assistant Professor, Urban Planning; Associate Faculty Director, Institute on Inequality and Democracy; Member, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: As climate change and drought develop worldwide, coastal cities in parts of Asia are sinking. Southwest Asia is particularly vulnerable.

UCLA News: By 2030, a large part of Jakarta [the largest city in Southeast Asia] will be uninhabitable” — or if not, soon to be regularly flooded, Goh said. “The root cause of land subsidence in cities is development coupled with a lack of adequate planning.” Drilling wells and extracting groundwater would not be necessary if cities had adequate piping and municipal water supplies, Goh added. “The places with the highest land subsidence are often home to poor populations living in settlements dating back to colonial times.” 

Read more at Washington Post.