Mexico City is dropping, in some places, as much as five inches a year. A joint NASA-ISRO satellite mission has produced the most detailed map yet of the capital’s relentless subsidence, revealing that the ground beneath millions of people is compressing at uneven, alarming rates.
The Ground Is Giving Way Under a Megacity
Using radar data from the NISAR satellite, scientists measured how the land surface in Mexico City has shifted between 2020 and 2023. The map, released by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows patches of blue where the city is sinking fastest, up to 13 centimeters annually. Yellow and green areas are sinking more slowly. The airport, a major transit hub, sits inside one of the most rapidly subsiding zones.
Why the City Is Dropping, and Who’s Watching
Mexico City was built on an ancient lakebed. The soft clay beneath it has long been prone to compaction, but the main driver now is groundwater extraction. As residents and industries pump water from underground aquifers, the soil collapses on itself. The NISAR mission, a collaboration between the U.S. and Indian space agencies, is the first to track this subsidence across the entire metropolitan area with such precision. Local authorities and urban planners have taken notice because the sinking is not uniform: some neighborhoods are dropping much faster than others, which can crack foundations, rupture water pipes, and strain infrastructure.
What This Means for a City Already Under Pressure
The satellite data gives Mexico City its clearest picture yet of a slow-moving crisis. The subsidence has been documented for decades, but the new maps show the problem is ongoing and spatially complex. For the millions who live there, the ground beneath their homes and roads is changing shape in ways that are invisible day-to-day but measurable from space. The NISAR mission will continue monitoring, providing a tool for officials to decide where to limit groundwater pumping or reinforce critical structures. The city is not about to disappear, but it is, inch by inch, settling into its own past.
