According to a new study, New York is fucked in the near future, along with Baltimore, Houston and Miami. Like other coastal metropolitan areas, urban expansion is making the city more susceptible to flooding. Regardless of climate change, the chances of a deluge will increase, say researchers at Texas A&M University:
“Urban areas exposed to flood and drought hazards will increase considerably due to the sheer increase in their extents driven primarily by socio-economic forces,” says Burak Güneralp, lead author of the study and a research assistant professor in geography at Texas A&M.
The more popular and developed New York becomes, the worse things will get. As wetlands get paved over, the city’s overall ability to soak up water during extreme weather events gets reduced. But all is not doomed. There is a solution: money. Lots of it:
“The infrastructure requirements of all this forecasted growth would be phenomenal. For example, elsewhere, it is estimated that a staggering $57 trillion will be required to meet the global infrastructure demand worldwide by 2030.”
Kickstarter?
(Photo: Alex Lukas)
