From space, ODU researchers can see Hampton Roads sinking

Hampton Roads is sinking. That’s not new to anyone who lives here or studies local flooding.

But new research using a satellite orbiting Earth is beginning to tell us just how differently the sinking looks depending on where you are in the region.

A team from Old Dominion University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory found that Norfolk and Virginia Beach are subsiding roughly 3.5 millimeters per year.

That’s not much different from what was suspected before, but they can now say it with more precision, said Brett Buzzanga, a doctoral candidate at ODU’s Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography and lead author of a new study.

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