Satellite Data Show That Parts Of New Orleans, Including Airport, Are Sinking About Two Inches Per Year
Parts of New Orleans, including its international airport, are sinking nearly two inches per year, according to a new study. Wetlands and parts of the city’s levee system are sinking, too.
The geography of New Orleans resembles a bowl, and it’s protected from flooding by a system of earthen levees, concrete flood walls, pumps and canals that took the Army Corps of Engineers nearly 15 years and $15 billion to build. That makes it particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and other environmental stresses. “Subsidence can compromise protective infrastructure over time,” said Leonard Ohenhen, an expert on remote sensing at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study. “I hope we get more work like this, quantifying subsidence over time in cities.”
As levees and flood walls sink, they can crack and accumulate structural damage. They also become shorter, making them less effective against storm surges and rising sea levels. That’s a particularly big concern in New Orleans because the Gulf of Mexico has the fastest sea level rise in the country.
To assess where and how quickly land elevation in New Orleans has changed in recent decades, the authors of the new study, published in the journal Science Advances, used radar collected by satellites over two time periods, from 2002 to 2007 and from 2016 to 2020. In each period, a satellite passed over the city multiple times, letting researchers compare elevations over time.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/climate/map-new-orleans-sinking.html
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