Ground motion by city › California

Is the ground sinking in California?

Satellite radar (NASA OPERA / Sentinel-1 InSAR) has measured vertical ground motion across California since 2016. The fastest-sinking California city we measure is Bakersfield at -8.5 mm/yr. 3 of the 7 California cities we cover are measurably sinking. Pick a city, or check any address.

Check the ground
Bakersfield
-8.5 mm/yr · Rapid subsidence
Sacramento
-5.3 mm/yr · Direction unclear
Fresno
-5.1 mm/yr · Notable subsidence
San Diego
-1.7 mm/yr · Direction unclear
San Jose
-1.4 mm/yr · Direction unclear
San Francisco
-0.9 mm/yr · Direction unclear
Los Angeles
+0.3 mm/yr · Direction unclear

How this is measured

SibFly reads NASA OPERA DISP-S1 (processed Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar) at a 30-meter grid and fits the multi-year trend at each cell. It is measured movement, not a model — a screening estimate from space, not an engineering survey. Developers and AI agents can pull the same data from the API.

How fast is America sinking? → · All US cities