NEW YORK, BRONX (ORDO News) — Due to human activity, global warming and planning mistakes, New York could become another city buried under water in the future, according to a new study. This is reported by Space.
Scientists at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted the study between 2016 and 2023 using modern space technologies, including the Synthesized Aperture Interferometric Radar.
This made it possible to create a three-dimensional map of the soil under New York and trace the movement of the earth over the years. They found that the soil under the city is sinking by about 1.6 mm per year.
Part of the subsidence of the soil is natural and related to changes that took place many years ago. For example, when ice sheets covered part of North America about 24,000 years ago, they exerted pressure on the land, and after the ice melted, some areas, including New York, began to rise. However, these lands are now sinking again.
Interestingly, not all declines can be explained by natural processes. For example, some sites, such as Runway 13/31 at LaGuardia Airport and Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, are sinking faster because of urban planning mistakes.
These objects were built on places where landfills used to be. For the same reason, islands such as Governors Island and Rikers Island are experiencing accelerated subsidence.
On the other hand, some New York neighborhoods are on the rise, such as East Williamsburg in Brooklyn. All these processes can be caused by human activities, for example, pumping of groundwater and use of injection wells. However, more research is needed for a deeper understanding of this problem.
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News agencies contributed to this report, edited and published by ORDO News editors.
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