*The weight of New York City’s skyscrapers may be causing the city to sink into its surrounding waters, according to new geological research.
As the New York Post reports, in the last year, the city has sunk 1-1.75 millimeters closer to the water, “with some areas subsiding much faster.”
According to lead researcher and geologist Tom Parsons of the United States Geological Survey, Lower Manhattan is particularly vulnerable, as are Brooklyn and Queens.
“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,” Parsons and his team wrote in the report.
“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 structural integrity of many of the city’s buildings could be compromised in the future, according to Parsons.
“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.
Parsons noted that real state developers are not taking the city’s “sinking” issue seriously enough.
“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,” he wrote, per the Post.
“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,” Parsons added.
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