Researchers have discovered that the mass of buildings in New York City is contributing to it subsiding by one to two millimetres a year, adding to the city's flood risk.
Researchers from the government's US Geological Survey and the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island calculated the mass of all the buildings in New York City for the study, which they say is the first to look specifically at the contribution of the built environment on subsidence.
Their conclusion is that, depending on the underlying types of soil and foundation modes, the buildings have the potential to sink as much as 600 millimetres.
Every building "could contribute to future flood risk"
This subsidence adds to flood risk, which is already heightened in New York City due to sea level rise and increasing storm intensity, the researchers say. "As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard," they wrote.
"The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk, and that mitigation strategies may need to be included."
Titled The Weight of New York City: Possible Contributions to Subsidence From Anthropogenic Sources, the paper was published in the journal Earth's Future and authored by US Geological Survey geophysicist Tom Parsons and Universi...