"Scientists have known for years that water levels are rising faster in the Chesapeake Bay region than just about anywhere else in the world — because water is only part of the problem here. The land is also sinking.

That phenomenon, known as “land subsidence,” accounts for more than half of the sea level rise in many places around the Bay. But if researchers and land managers look up subsidence rates in the scientific literature for some important piece of real estate, they encounter a barrage of different estimates.

Some clarity has arrived. Scientists undertaking the largest research effort of its kind in the Chesapeake region have officially clocked the average speed of the Bay region’s sinking topography at a rate of 1.4 millimeters per year.

That amount — just under the width of a penny — is roughly consistent with what smaller, more localized studies have suggested."

Jeremy Cox reports for the Bay Journal February 3, 2026. [2]