Vulnerability of New York City to Disasters Question Answer 2022

Vulnerability of New York City to Disasters 1
VULNARABILITY OF NEW YORK CITY TO NATURAL HAZARDS AND CLIMATE
CHANGE
A Paper on Natural Disasters By
Student’s Name
Name of the Professor
Institutional Affiliation
City/State
Year/Month/Day

Vulnerability of New York City to Disasters 2
INTRODUCTION
New York City is the largest city in the Unites States of America with the number of the
population about 8.6 million according to the US census bureau in 2016 is the largest city in
terms of economic activities. This city is constructed around the network of many islands, rivers,
estuaries with many regions located less than 5m above the sea level. The location of the city
makes it vulnerable to the occurrence of natural disasters that may be accelerated by climate
change. These natural hazards and climate change have historically caused negative effects in
NYC such as coastal and inland flooding, heat waves, hurricanes, and coastal storms. Climate
change has been experienced with high temperatures, raised everyday heavy downpours or
precipitations and rising sea level.
Ouestion1
NATURAL HAZARDS AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS IN NYC
Data on the high precipitation and extreme heating events show the relatedness to the climatic
hazardous trends. The rest of the impactful hazards that have been affecting NYC include the
storms and hurricanes. Heatwaves have been occurring for example over the three consecutive
days with the highest temperature at or above 33 degrees Celsius. In the list of natural hazards
and climate change, the high number of death in the city have been produced by heat waves,
hurricanes and lastly by storms1.
1 Rosenzweig and Solecki, Introduction to Climate Change Adaptation in New York City:
Building a Risk Management Response."
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 13-
18.

Vulnerability of New York City to Disasters 3
These factors usually impact on the transportation systems such as the closure of subways, roads,
trains, highways, and ferries2. Extreme precipitation has been impacting the buildings because of
collapse caused by flooding, damages of energy systems such as gas pipes and the overflow of
the drainage system. The impacts have been seen in the education system because of the closure
of school during extreme weather. Heatwaves have occurred in the city with most of them lasting
for more than six consecutive days caused by poor diffusion of air conditioning and inadequate
cooling centers.
Severe storms: The storms comprise the combination of weather hazards such as heavy
precipitation, lightning, and thunder, hails and winds mostly during August and July. The most
vulnerable people to these disasters are the ones along the island because of their high population
next to the coast. These severe storms beings the high tides. Excess precipitation in the form of
both snow and rain. The results are usually catastrophic especially flooding in the low lying
areas3.
Extreme flooding: throughout the city of New York, heavy rainfall leads to flooding in every
season. The city, because of the impermeable surfaces such as buildings and roads, the steep
slopes are usually vulnerable. High precipitation is normally associated with a thunderstorm.
Flooding usually occurs during times of high precipitation mostly hurricanes, ice jams, and other
storms. Flood normally because many damages that take a long time to repair
2 Yaella and Timon. 2018, changing urban risk: 140 years of climatic hazards in New York
City, 95-108.
3 Colle, Bowman, Hunter, and Mintz, New York City’s vulnerability to coastal flooding: storm
surge modeling of past cyclones, 829–841.