New geological data cautions that New York City’s one million buildings, which weigh a cumulative 1.7 trillion pounds, are actually causing the Big Apple to sink lower into its encompassing bodies of water.
Manhattan is dropping closer to the water at a degree of one to two millimeters per year, “with some areas subsiding much faster.”
A seemingly inconsequential reduction, the plodding decent makes NYC tremendously vulnerable to natural disasters, according to geologist and lead researcher, Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey.
While there is cause for concern for both Queens and Brooklyn, lower Manhattan is predominantly in jeopardy, according to Parsons’ study.
“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 and his team wrote in the new report.
“Two recent hurricanes caused casualties and heavy damage in New York City,” the review explained.
“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.”
The more recent of the two hurricanes forced residents to abandon their vehicles on major streets throughout the city. Parsons worries that NYC’s various skyscrapers’ structural integrity could be compromised in the future.
“The combination of tectonic and anthropogenic subsidence, sea level rise, and increasing hurricane intensity imply an accelerating problem along coastal and riverfront areas,” he wrote.
“Repeated exposure of building foundations to salt water can corrode reinforcing steel and chemically weaken concrete causing structural weakening.”
Astonishingly, countless real estate additions in New York City built after the destruction of Sandy are not taking the situation seriously enough, he added.
“New York City is ranked third in the world in terms of future exposed assets to coastal flooding and 90% of the 67,400 structures in the expanded post-Hurricane Sandy flood-risk areas have not been built to floodplain standards.”
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