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NASA has identified several “hotspots” in New York City that are sinking at a faster rate than the entire metropolitan region.
Researchers determined that the city is sinking at an average rate of 0.06 inches per year, while specific locations, such as an airstrip at LaGuardia Airport and Arthur Ashe Stadium, they are falling more than twice as fast.
Other hotspots include Interstate 78, which passes through the Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey, Coney Island in Brooklyn and Arverne in Queens, all built on artificial fill.
A runway at LaGuardia Airport and Arthur Ashe Stadium are sinking up to 0.18 inches per year compared to New York City’s average 0.06-inch decline each year.
As the city sinks under the weight of skyscrapers, newly identified hotspots are sinking because they sit on an ancient glacier that is receding.
NASA has identified several “hotspots” in New York City that are sinking at a rapid rate, putting them at greater risk of sea level rise. Researchers determined that the city is sinking at an average rate of 0.06 inches per year.
The ancient glacier covered most of New England about 24,000 years ago, and a wall of ice more than a mile high covered what is now Albany, in upstate New York.
The Earth’s mantle, something like a flexed mattress, has been slowly readjusting itself.
New York City, situated on high ground just outside the edge of the ice sheet, is now sinking again.
NASA scientists teamed up with researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey to analyze the 302.6-square-mile city made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island.
The team analyzed the vertical up and down movement of land, or uplift and subsidence, in New York City from 2016 to 2023.
The work involved using an interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) remote sensing technique, which combines two or more 3D observations of the same region to reveal surface motion or topography.
NASA scientists teamed up with researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey to analyze the 302.6-square-mile city made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island.
By mapping the vertical motion of the land in the New York City area, researchers found that the land is sinking (indicated in blue) at about 0.06 inches per year on average. They also detected a modest increase (shown in red) in Queens and Brooklyn. White dotted lines indicate county/district boundaries.
Much of the movement they observed occurred in areas where previous modifications to the Earth’s surface (such as land reclamation and landfill construction) made the soil looser and more compressible beneath later buildings.
The study found that LaGuardia Airport’s Runway 13/31 sinks 0.15 inches per year.
This runway is built on a former landfill (and is currently undergoing an $8 billion renovation, designed in part to alleviate flooding caused by rising sea levels).
Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium, the largest tennis venue in the world, was found to be sinking 0.18 inches per year; This facility was also built on a landfill.
Interstate 78 is descending 0.07 inches and the southern part of Governors Island sinks 0.03 inches per year.
Runway 13/31 at LaGuardia Airport in Queens is sinking at a rate of about 0.15 inches per year.
However, the team also found that some areas are rising unevenly, such as part of Newtown Creek, a Superfund site in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is rising about 0.06 inches.
The lower region was built on rubble. from the Lexington Avenue subway excavations in the early 20th century.
The Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the deposition of 4,787,000 cubic yards of fill on the south side of Governors Island.
Coastal hot spots Coney Island was observed sinking at a rate of 0.3 inches per year, and Arverne by the Sea in Queens is sinking 0.04 inches, both built on artificial fill.
Arverne is a neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula.
Scientists also found a previously unidentified increase in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which rose about 0.06 inches per year, and in Woodside, Queens, which rose 0.27 inches per year between 2016 and 2019 before leveling off.
Co-author Robert Kopp of Rutgers University said groundwater pumping and injection wells used to treat contaminated water may have played a role, but more research is needed.
“I’m intrigued by the potential of using high-resolution InSAR to measure these types of relatively short-lived environmental modifications associated with uplift,” Kopp said.
Scientists said cities like New York, which are investing in infrastructure and coastal defenses in the face of rising sea levels, can benefit from high-resolution estimates of ground motion.