This is why New York City is sinking: New report
A group of geological researchers charting the Earth’s future has predicted this major metropolis will end up under water, and here’s why.
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New studies show the cause of New York City, including the island of Manhattan and its outer burroughs, sinking.
On one hand there is the rising sea level, but also the weight of the famous buildings themselves.
New research claims the metropolis is gradually sinking under the weight of its famous skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, subway infrastructure, roads and footpaths – and its more than eight million residents.
The subsidence is occurring at a rate of 1 to 2 millimetres per year – for now, according to the Associated Press.
While that is a natural process of settling that happens over time, the study published in the journal Earth’s Future, claims that the city’s gargantuan weight is accelerating the process.
New York City is home to more than one million buildings with a combined weight of 1.5 trillion metric tonnes.
That is the equivalent of NYC’s most famous architectural icon, the Empire State Building – times 4700.
Upper Manhattan and Midtown are built on rock and are therefore sinking at a slower rate.The most vulnerable areas more prone to sinking are Downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens because they were built on coastal marsh and swampy woodlands.
Interestingly, One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan is the tallest building in New York and the western hemisphere and arguably it is built on some of the island’s more vulnerable topography.
The site of the World Trade Center was located on landfill, with the bedrock located 20 metres below street level.
In order to construct the massive building, it was necessary to build a slurry wall along the West Street side of the site, to keep water from the Hudson River out.
But despite such human engineering, eventually, parts of the city will be underwater, says US Geological Survey researcher Tom Parsons.
“It’s inevitable. The ground is going down, and the water’s coming up. At some point, those two levels will meet,” he said, referring to the fact that the ocean is rising at the same rate that the land is sinking.
But it won’t happen overnight. Parsons says it will take hundreds of years for major parts of the city to submerge like Venice.
But Lower Manhattan is only about one or two metres above sea level, which makes it much more vulnerable to climate change events that bring flooding, such as Hurricanes Sandy (2012) and Ida (2021), both of which devastated shoreline communities such as Red Hook, the Rockaways, and Staten Island.
And despite the research findings, there is no plan to stop construction in the most famous city in the world.
As of early 2023, New York City has 16 buildings taller than 305 metres (about as tall as the Eiffel Tower) built, the number is only second to Dubai, which has 26 similarly tall buildings. However, NYC has more 400m-plus buildings than any other city and a large number of skyscrapers under construction or planned in a similar height range.
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