No Way! New York City Is Sinking Under The Weight Of Its Buildings, Geologists Warn

The city of New York is famous for its architecture. The numerous overarching skyscrapers that fill the sky of the city are a trademark of NYC. However, now a new study that has been published in the scientific journal Earth’s Future, claims that New York City is sinking under the weight of its countless buildings.

NYC Is Sinking Because Of Its Buildings, Geologists Say

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Well, it is no surprise that the geological research claims such a feat as the city has over a million buildings that approximately weigh 1.7 trillion pounds. According to the study, the city is plopping into the water bodies that surround it at a rate of 1 to 2 millimetres a year “with some areas subsiding much faster.”

Although the minuscule slip does not seem like a threat to commoners, the experts know that such a change is no friend to the residents of the city as the gradual descent makes New York extremely prone to natural disasters, per the lead researcher and geologist of the United States Geological Survey Tom Parsons.

Among the various at-risk areas, the research suggests that lower Manhattan might bear the brunt of the slip. There are also rising concerns about the popular neighbourhoods of Brooklyn and Queens.?

Parsons and his team wrote in a new report, “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.”

The Effects Of The City Sinking Have Been Visible For Decades

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The effects of the city’s Titanic-esque future have already been visible for more than a decade. “Two recent hurricanes caused casualties and heavy damage in New York City,” Parsons noted. He added, “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 recent hurricanes in the city worry Parsons that these calamities can mess with the city’s structural integrity, “The combination of tectonic and anthropogenic subsidence, sea level rise, and increasing hurricane intensity imply an accelerating problem along coastal and riverfront areas.”

Parsons continued in the report, “Repeated exposure of building foundations to salt water can corrode reinforcing steel and chemically weaken concrete causing structural weakening.”?

The report considers this slipping of land a shared concern of the world, “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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