New York City is sinking about 1-2 mm per year, from the weight of its skyscrapers, finds a study showing that the increasing sea level rise could put its over 8 million population at risk of coastal flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study, published in the journal Earth’s Future, showed that the city faces accelerating inundation risk from sea level rise, subsidence, and increasing storm intensity from natural and anthropogenic causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Satellite observations made by researchers at the United States Geological Survey demonstrated an average 1-2 mm\/year subsidence rate across New York City. However, certain parts of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and northern Staten Island were found to be sinking at a much faster rate of 2.75mm each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“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,” the researchers said, warning that new buildings in the city could be at increased threat of floods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk,” the researchers said, stressing the need to increase mitigation strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further, the researchers found that areas with clay-rich soil are likely to see an increase in subsidence “because of the material softness and ability to flow under pressure”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study showed that major cities around the world are expected to grow disproportionately relative to rural areas, with a projected 70 per cent of the world’s population living in cities by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Major cities on every continent except Antarctica are observed to be subsiding, and the issue may be worsened as populations grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Increasing urbanisation will likely exacerbate subsidence by groundwater extraction and\/or construction density, which combined with accelerating sea level rise implies a growing flood hazard in coastal cities,” the geologists said, calling for mitigation strategies against inundation in growing coastal cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York City is sinking about 1-2 mm per year, from the weight of its skyscrapers, finds a study showing that the increasing sea level rise could put its over 8 million population at risk of coastal flooding. The study, published in the journal Earth’s Future, showed that the city faces accelerating inundation risk from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":349219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-infotainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}