NASA has released new satellite imagery showing Mexico City is sinking by nearly 10 inches, or about 25 centimeters, a year, a pace that is visible from space and is worsening an already chronic water crisis. The measurements, taken between October 2025 and January 2026, show the ground in parts of the capital dropping about 0.78 inches, or 2 centimeters, a month.
That rate matters because Mexico City is home to about 22 million people spread across roughly 3,000 square miles, and the land under them is giving way faster than many cities can repair. The yearly subsidence rate is about 9.5 inches, or 24 centimeters, and over less than a century the drop has exceeded 39 feet, or 12 meters. Paul Rosen said the data are “telling us something about what's actually happening below the surface,” adding that it is “basically documentation of all of these changes within a city,” and that “you can see the full magnitude of the problem.”
The city and its surrounding metro area were built atop an ancient lake bed, and Mexico City has been sinking for more than a century as extensive groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer. The contracting aquifer has helped drive a water crisis that is expected to worsen. In some parts of the city, the main airport and the Angel of Independence are among the places where the land is sinking at the average monthly rate seen in the new imagery.
That damage is already showing up in plain view. The Metropolitan Cathedral, whose construction began in 1573, is visibly tilted to the side, a reminder that the problem is not abstract or new. Enrique Cabral said the subsidence damages “part of the critical infrastructure of Mexico City, such as the subway, the drainage system, the water, the potable water system, housing and streets,” and warned that “we have one of the fastest velocities of land subsidence in the whole world.”
The tension is that the new satellite technology may help map the problem more precisely, but it cannot stop the ground from moving. NISAR, a joint initiative between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization, is giving researchers a sharper view of subsidence that could help study the scale of the damage and mitigate its effects. For Mexico City, the conclusion is already clear: the sinking is no longer a hidden geological process, but a public emergency written into streets, buildings and the water system itself.
