Land creation, or land reclamation, transforms submerged or degraded areas into new, usable territory. This ancient practice has become more prominent as global populations grow and demand for space intensifies. It alters existing geography, creating new possibilities for human development.
Understanding Land Creation
Land creation, or reclamation, involves creating new land from water bodies like oceans, seas, or riverbeds. It differs from land restoration, which returns degraded land to its natural state. Motivations include space for densely populated areas, urban expansion (housing, commercial, infrastructure like airports), and agricultural or tourism development. Historically, land creation dates back millennia, seen in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Netherlands.
Primary Methods of Land Creation
New land creation involves moving material to fill water bodies. One common method is dredging and filling, excavating sediment, sand, or rock from seabeds and transporting it. Dredgers extract and deposit material to form new land. Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, for instance, used 120 million cubic meters of sand and 7 million tons of rock. Fill material often includes sand, rock, clay, or other aggregates.
Another method is the polder system, developed in the Netherlands. This technique constructs dikes to enclose a water area. Water within the dikes is then drained, often by pumps, creating dry land, typically below sea level. Continuous water management is required. While traditional reclamation relies on large sand quantities, polder development uses less and has been adopted by Singapore to reduce sand imports.
Environmental and Ecological Considerations
Land creation projects impact the environment and ecology. A concern is destruction of marine habitats like coral reefs and seagrass beds, which support diverse marine life. Dredging directly disrupts the seabed, causing species loss and stressing marine organisms.
Projects also change water flow and quality. Dredging resuspends sediments, increasing turbidity, which reduces light and harms aquatic plants. This can release pollutants like heavy metals or excess nutrients, leading to water contamination, algal blooms, and oxygen depletion. Alterations to natural currents and wave patterns can impact coastal stability, potentially causing erosion or accretion.
Biodiversity is substantially impacted, as ecosystems are disrupted and species displaced. New land can affect marine species migration and reduce fish populations. Long-term effects include land subsidence from fill material compaction, increasing flood vulnerability and affecting infrastructure. Such changes can imbalance freshwater and saltwater systems, impacting aquatic and terrestrial environments.
Notable Projects Around the Globe
Land creation projects transform coastlines and provide space for global development. The Netherlands is a prominent example, with a long history of land reclamation, particularly using polder systems. About 65% of its territory is reclaimed or protected from water.
In Dubai, the Palm Jumeirah is an artificial archipelago built for tourism and luxury real estate. Initiated in 2001, it involved moving sand and rock to create its distinctive shape, significantly increasing Dubai’s coastline.
Singapore extensively uses land reclamation to expand its limited natural land. Projects like Marina Bay, Changi Airport, and Jurong Island were built on reclaimed land, supporting urban, infrastructure, and industrial development. Singapore recently adopted the polder method to reduce sand reliance for future reclamation.
The Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), on Chek Lap Kok island, exemplifies land creation for infrastructure. The airport platform expanded from two small islands; about 75% of its 12.48 square kilometer area was reclaimed from the seabed. Later reclamation for expansion used non-dredge methods like deep cement mixing to consolidate the ground.