New York is sinking due to the skyscrapers: soon completely underwater?
Every year, New York sinks an average of 1 to 2 millimetres further due to the weight of its many skyscrapers. In doing so, the sinking city incidentally pushes the sea level up further.
Since 1950, the water around New York is said to have risen by some 22 centimetres. The risk of flooding is thus ever-increasing. According to researchers, one of the reasons why New York is sinking so fast is because of the many heavy buildings the city carries. It is estimated that the total weight of all structures in New York is equivalent to 140 million elephants.
In a scientific study published in the journal Earth's Future, researchers "attempt to assess how the cumulative mass of the megacity's infrastructure affects subsidence", a phenomenon directly caused by human activities and soil erosion.
The city of 762 million tonnes
The city known as the Big Apple is under enormous pressure. Geologists estimate that the total mass of the one million buildings, skyscrapers and towers at the bottom of New York is 762 million tonnes. "That's the equivalent of more than 75,000 Eiffel Towers," says La Presse. An impressive force that causes the cultural and economic capital of the United States to sink one to two millimetres a year. According to the study, this subsidence can reach 4.5 mm per year in neighbourhoods where buildings have been erected on artificial ground.
Tom Parsons, a US geophysicist and co-author of the study, claims that reducing the number of concrete towers would do nothing to change the phenomenon. "The primary cause of the subsidence of New York and the East Coast is tectonic and cannot be contained," he underlines. This 'subsidence' could be responsible for the accelerated rise in water levels, a result of climate change and melting ice. "According to the organisation Sea Level Rise.org, New York's water level has risen 23 centimetres since 1950, and the city predicts it will rise another 20 to 75 centimetres by 2050, and as much as 1.8 metres by 2100, with repeated storms," reports La Presse.
Climate resilience plan
To counter the threat and protect itself from rising sea levels, the city has drawn up a massive plan to strengthen its 836 km of coastline. Total cost? 20 billion dollar. That's a lot of money to protect the 8.5 million people who walk the streets of this city of 251 skyscrapers every day.
(FVDV and AsD for Tagtik/Source: La Presse/Illustration: Pixabay)
