Phoenix is sinking into the ground due to groundwater pumping, new report says

PHOENIX — The city of Phoenix is sinking into the ground by one millimeter a year, according to a new report.

Researchers said this sinking could cause widespread damage to the city’s infrastructure.

The report found that 20% of the land in the country’s 28 most populous cities are sinking.

Why Phoenix is sinking, according to report

The increased use of groundwater is a driving factor in the way cities are sinking, according to the report.

ASU professor Kip Hodges with the School of Earth and Space Exploration agrees with the researchers’ conclusion that using risk assessment, regulations and community conversations could help prevent potential infrastructural damage.

“We’re pumping more and more (water) as the population is beginning to grow more and more now. We’re pumping enough water out that we’re actually subsiding faster than the recharge is causing the surface to go up,” Hodges said.

When underground aquifers have water pumped out for use, the ground above them can begin to sink, he added.

However, land can also rise when those reservoirs are refilled.

As a result, actual sinking rates in the Valley’s various communities can depend on how much of the water under the ground is being used.

“In pockets of Phoenix, things are sinking pretty fast,” Hodges said.

Report that Phoenix is sinking backed up by old data

The issue has been plaguing the Valley for decades.

Before the 1980s, the Valley had far more land used for farming. The water required for those fields also led to city-sinking back then, according to Hodges.

“Basically, we’re getting back to the time when subsidence was a major problem in Phoenix,” he said. “It’s the populace.”

The recent report has an Arizona link: It used data collected by Manoochehr Shirzaei, one of Hodges’ colleagues, a decade ago.

“Most of the part of the study that has to with Phoenix is actually derivative of that older work,” Hodges said.

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