In the summer I read a piece in The Economist about Gulf states spending billions to build cities in the sea1. This led me to research about land reclamation: the process of constructing artificial land from oceans, seas, rivers and lake beds. As wealth has spread around the world, many countries have embarked on land reclamation projects.
The rationale for these schemes is to increase space for coastal cities or to convert land for agriculture. This may not seem unreasonable but our environment is suffering for it. The concrete that is paved over wetlands and seas is causing biodiversity loss and pollution. And these projects are being driven by the relentless logic of economic growth. Nature has become subservient to airports, oil terminals, factories and farmland.
My piece on the Extinction Rebellion Global blog explores this further:
https://rebellion.global/blog/2022/12/13/land-reclamation-environmental-catastrophe/
Hi Stephen. Great artcle. Much of my reaserch is on mapping coastal land reclamation globally. Here is my latest study- https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF002927 and media article- https://news.agu.org/press-release/new-land-creation-on-waterfronts-increasing-study-finds/. Happy to chat more.