Overview
- NISAR, a joint NASA–ISRO satellite, mapped Mexico City from October 2025 to January 2026 and found neighborhoods subsiding at more than 2 centimeters per month.
- The satellite’s L-band radar measures ground movement day or night through clouds and dense vegetation, allowing consistent tracking of subsidence.
- Hot spots include areas near Benito Juárez International Airport, where ongoing sinking threatens roads, pipes, buildings, and transit lines.
- Mission scientists say the findings are preliminary and expect sharper, wider coverage as NISAR revisits land every 12 days and more data roll in.
- Mexico City’s soft former lakebed and heavy groundwater pumping compress the ground, a long-standing problem that hit about 35 centimeters a year in some areas in the 1990s and 2000s.