New York City is sinking: Here’s what the local government is doing to try to stay afloat

The rise of sea levels has been accelerating since the 1990s according to NASA satellite readings. In 2023, the yearly rate was 0.17 inches per year, up from 0.08 inches in 1993.

At the same time, many areas of the East Coast are seeing subsidence of the land underneath them, mainly due to depletion of the groundwater. This is posing a threat for cities like the Big Apple, which has sunk 18.5 inches since 1925, to flooding from tides, extreme rainfall and hurricane storm surges.

The race is on to try to save these US urban centers from becoming inundated. In the case of New York City, experts are exploring several options to help the city adapt for the future, where 17% of the population, or 1.4 million residents, will be at risk by 2080 from flooding.

These include allowing the earth to absorb more water, fortifying the coastline and potentially relocating portions of the population, all of which may have to be implemented if the city is to survive.

How to keep NYC above water: dealing with excess stormwater

Like many coastal cities in the United States, New York City grew out over flood plains and on top of reclaimed land from the sea. The impermeable surfaces deny water from rainfall the opportunity to soak into the ground, creating a situation where stormwater has to be channeled into systems that were designed for a bygone era.

Starting in 1995, for the first time the stormwater drainage system was not able to accommodate the amount of precipitation falling to the ground, and as extreme weather events become more common it’s been happening more frequently. In three of the last five years the amount of rainfall has exceeded the 1.75 inches of rain per hour that the system is designed to handle reports The New York Times.

The events of Hurricane Sandy in 2015 led to the creation of the Cloudburst program to help make the city more resilient to these kind of extreme weather events. It is redesigning parts of the city to intentionally flood, so that stormwater can be captured and/or rerouted so that it doesn’t overwhelm the stormwater systems.

Fortifying New York City from the storm surge

The Dutch began engineering a dike system to protect themselves against the tempestuous North Sea over a thousand years ago. In 1986 they completed the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, a massive series of barriers and dams that keep storm surges from flooding the nation.

A similar project has been proposed by the US Army Corps of Engineers that would stretch across New York Harbor and keep roughly 96% of the study area safe, but would come with the cost of around $119 billion. Another would be a series of barriers along the metropolis’ coastline at a cost of $53 billion but would leave 37% of the at-risk areas unprotected and affect waterfront views.

Getting people out of harm’s way

As can be seen, even with costly costal protections, parts of the city will still be at risk from being lost to the waters when they rise. So that means that some residents of areas prone to flooding will have to be relocated.

However, doing so is easier said than done. The Times explained, for example, even after Hurricane Sandy, despite the PSTD from the experience, many refused to leave. Even where a short-lived buyout program was in place in Staten Island, developers continued to build there.

The rising waters are coming, whether you believe in climate change or not. And the extreme storms are more than likely to continue creating dire situations. The solutions won’t be easy, nor cheap. But inaction will only exacerbate the inevitable.

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