How Do You Stop A Megacity From Going Under Water?
April 1st, 2025

Via BBC, a report on Bangkok, a megacity going under water:

Bangkok is a mega city of more than 10 million people, the economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia and one of the world’s most visited cities.

Billions of dollars worth of new luxury real estate is planned as huge skyscrapers pierce the sky and become back drops to some of our biggest film and TV series.

But there’s a problem, Bangkok is sinking; in fact, it’s one of the fastest sinking cities in the world.

To make matters worse, climate change is affecting both sides of the city: sea levels are rising in the Bay of Bangkok, and water levels are increasing in the mighty Chao Praya river.

Jordan Dunbar is in the Thai capital to find out: How do you stop a mega city sinking?


This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2025 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Resilient Infrastructure, River Flooding, Sea Level Rise, Subsidence.  You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  Both comments and pings are currently closed. 

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BLACK SWANS GREEN SHOOTS
Black Swans / Green Shoots examines the collision between urbanization and resource scarcity in a world affected by climate change, identifying opportunities to build sustainable cities and resilient infrastructure through the use of revolutionary capital, increased awareness, innovative technologies, and smart design to make a difference in the face of global and local climate perils.

'Black Swans' are highly improbable events that come as a surprise, have major disruptive effects, and that are often rationalized after the fact as if they had been predictable to begin with. In our rapidly warming world, such events are occurring ever more frequently and include wildfires, floods, extreme heat, and drought.

'Green Shoots' is a term used to describe signs of economic recovery or positive data during a downturn. It references a period of growth and recovery, when plants start to show signs of health and life, and, therefore, has been employed as a metaphor for a recovering economy.

It is my hope that Black Swans / Green Shoots will help readers understand both climate-activated risk and opportunity so that you may invest in, advise, or lead organizations in the context of increasing pressures of global urbanization, resource scarcity, and perils relating to climate change. I believe that the tools of business and finance can help individuals, businesses, and global society make informed choices about who and what to protect, and I hope that this blog provides some insight into the policy and private sector tools used to assess investments in resilient reinforcement, response, or recovery.