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NYC IS SINKING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF ITS BUILDINGS, GEOLOGISTS WARN

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Lifestyle


NYC IS SINKING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF ITS BUILDINGS, GEOLOGISTS WARN

By Alex Mitchell

May 17, 2023 | 12:46pm

The city that never sinks?


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New geological research warns that the weight of New York City’s skyscrapers is
actually causing the Big Apple — whose more than 1 million buildings weigh
nearly 1.7 trillion pounds — to sink lower into its surrounding bodies of water.

The city is plopping closer to the water at a rate of 1 to 2 millimeters a year,
“with some areas subsiding much faster.”

While that may not seem significant to untrained eyes, the gradual descent makes
NYC extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, according to lead researcher and
geologist Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey.

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Lower Manhattan is particularly at risk, and there is concern for both Brooklyn
and Queens as well, according to the study.

Lower Manhattan is at unique risk of flooding due to NYC sinking.Paul Martinka

“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,” he and his
team wrote in the new report.

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The city has already seen these harsh effects starting more than a decade ago.

“Two recent hurricanes caused casualties and heavy damage in New York City,” he
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.”

The weight of NYC buildings puts the city at additional flood risk.Paul Martinka

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SEE ALSO


NYC OFFICIALS BLAME CITY’S SINKHOLE SURGE ON ‘CLIMATE CRISIS’

As awful as Sandy and Ida were — the more recent of the two hurricanes forcing
people to abandon their cars on major roadways across the city — Parsons fears
that the structural integrity of the city’s many buildings could be at risk 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.”

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Not to mention, the threat of severe storms is more likely than it was years
ago, according to Parsons.

Greenhouse gas “appears to be reducing the natural wind shear barrier along the
US East Coast, which will allow more frequent high intensity hurricane events in
the coming decades.”

Areas like Queens are at risk of flooding, according to geologists.Getty
Images/iStockphoto

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Incredibly, many of New York’s real estate additions built since the devastation
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.

“New York is emblematic of growing coastal cities all over the world that are
observed to be subsiding, meaning there is a shared global challenge of
mitigation against a growing inundation hazard.”


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Filed under brooklyn ,  geology ,  hurricane sandy ,  manhattan ,  nyc ,  queens
,  science ,  staten island ,  water ,  5/17/23
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