The research, published in Earth’s Future journal, also highlights faster subsidence in areas like Lower Manhattan, raising concerns for Brooklyn and Queens….reports Asian Lite News
New York is sinking due to the weight of its skyscrapers, according to a recent study by US Geological Survey and geologists at the University of Rhode Island.
The city’s subsidence, sinking at a rate of 1-2 millimeters per year, is attributed to the collective weight of over 1 million buildings, totalling nearly 1.7 trillion pounds. The research, published in Earth’s Future journal, also highlights faster subsidence in areas like Lower Manhattan, raising concerns for Brooklyn and Queens.
According to lead researcher and geologist Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey, New York faces significant challenges from flood hazard.
“The threat of sea level rise is 3 to 4 times higher than the global average along the Atlantic coast of North America… A deeply concentrated population of 8.4 million people faces varying degrees of hazard from inundation in New York City,” Parsons wrote in the new report.
Parsons said he expects the findings should encourage further efforts to develop mitigation strategies to counter growing flood risk and rising sea levels.
“The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk,” he said in the report.
Explaining the methodology, Science Alert said that the team of researchers calculated the cumulative mass of the more than 1 million buildings in New York City, which worked out to be 764,000,000,000 kilograms or 1.68 trillion pounds, NDTV reported.
They the divided the city into a grid of 100-by-100-metre squares and converted building mass to downward pressure by factoring in gravity’s pull.
The researchers left out roads, sidewalks, bridges, railways and other paved areas, focussing only on buildings.
The city has already seen the harsh effects starting more than a decade ago, New York Post reported.
“Two recent hurricanes caused casualties and heavy damage in New York City,” Parsons wrote.
“In 2012, Hurricane Sandy forced sea water into the city, whereas heavy rainfall from Hurricane Ida in 2021 overwhelmed drainage systems because of heavy runoff within the mostly paved city.”
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