A little-known climate threat lurks under our feet: rising groundwater that could release toxic chemicals from more than 132,000 contaminated sites in coastal areas of the US. In a first of its kind study, researchers estimated the number of polluted industrial sites and mapped them to areas likely to experience groundwater inundation due to rising seas.
“A lot of people don’t realize that the ocean actually extends under the land in coastal areas, so as the ocean rises, it pushes up the groundwater toward