Build a city out of thin air at sea! It sounds a bit sci-fi, but it's becoming a reality, and the Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives has been thinking about it lately.
According to U.S. media reports, the Maldives is preparing to build a maritime city near the capital, Malé, a 10-minute boat ride away. Instead of building a city identical to the land, the maritime city consists of 5,000 floating units that can accommodate about 20,000 people (the total population of the Maldives is about 557,000). According to the plan, the city has houses, restaurants, shops, schools and other facilities, and is connected by a canal.
The project is a collaboration between a Dutch property developer and the Maldives, and the first units will kick off this month. The units are first built at local shipyards and then towed to the surface of the sea for "connection". The first residents are expected to move in in 2024, and the city will be completed around 2027. The city as a whole is honeycomb-shaped and hexagonal, looking like a labyrinth.
The construction of floating cities in the Maldives is actually a helpless move. As global sea levels continue to rise, the island nation in the Indian Ocean is facing the threat of "annihilation." As one of the lowest in the world, the average altitude is only 1.8 meters above sea level, and the highest elevation is only 2.4 meters above sea level, and rising sea levels are eroding the maldivian land little by little.
Of the 1,192 coral islands in the Maldives archipelago, only 250 are inhabited. Its capital, Malé, has an area of only 2 square kilometers and is home to almost 248,000 people, and the density can be described as terrifying. There is no way to do it, their land is too scarce! According to experts, at this rate, by 2050, perhaps 80% of the Maldives' 298 square kilometers of land will be submerged!
In fact, not only the Maldives, but many of the world's small island nations face such threats.
Tuvalu, an island nation in the South Pacific, consists of nine crater-shaped coral islands with a total land area of only 26 square kilometers, which is not as large as the Dongcheng District of Beijing. The country's highest point is only 4.5 meters above sea level, and the largest wave in the area reaches an altitude of 3.2 meters. As sea levels have risen, the sea has been pushed towards Tuvalu by about 1 metre. If sea levels rise further, Tuvalu could become the first country in the world to be completely swallowed up by seawater due to a warming climate.
Pacific island countries such as Vanuatu (12,200 km2 on land), Fiji (18,300 km2 on land), Kiribati (811 sq km on land) and Nauru (21.1 sq km on land) are threatened by rising sea levels. Among them, the larger ones are better, and the smaller ones even have to make the worst plans for the "destruction of the country".
Since 1990, dozens of small island and low-altitude countries have formed the Alliance of Small Island States, calling on all countries in the world to take action as soon as possible to curb the global warming process. As we all know, the Paris Agreement is a climate change response treaty recognized by most countries in the world, in fact, the treaty originally agreed to control the global temperature increase within this century to 2 °C relative to the mid-18th century, and only after the strong appeal of these countries did it add 1.5 °C to the threshold.
Obviously, this is only a goal, not an inevitable achievement. And, as far as the current situation is concerned, it is unlikely that this goal will be achieved. According to a previous survey, the Earth's average temperature has increased by 1.09 °C compared with pre-industrial levels, just one step away from 1.5 °C.
Therefore, these Pacific island countries cannot pin all their hopes on the Paris Agreement, but need to prepare a plan b. For many years, the Maldivian government has allocated a portion of more than $1 billion a year in tourism funds to include an "active wealth fund" for future territorial purchases in other countries. It was previously reported that the President of the Maldives wanted to buy a piece of land in Australia to build a new Maldives.
In addition to plan b, the Maldives also has plan c, that is, floating cities on the sea. In fact, as early as 2010, the Maldives has proposed relevant plans, but it has not been officially launched, and this time it is really starting to start.
The so-called floating city is actually just a nickname, and its academic name is called artificial floating island. Such cities are not firmly rooted on land like land cities, but float on the surface of the water.
Although not built on land, artificial floating islands at sea still need a base. According to the plan, the units of the maritime city in the Maldives will be installed on a large underwater concrete structure and fixed to the seabed by telescopic steel, thus forming a whole.
Around this maritime city, there are also breakwaters formed by natural coral reefs, which can stabilize the urban structure and prevent the residents of the city from "seasickness".
In fact, not only the Maldives, which is threatened to be engulfed by the sea, but also some coastal countries will also build large artificial floating islands at sea in order to expand their space and use marine resources.
At present, Busan, South Korea, is also building artificial floating islands at sea. As a coastal city, Busan also faces the threat of rising sea levels all year round, so it has become the first test site for UN-Habitat's sustainable artificial floating island "Oceanix City".
According to the plan, the artificial floating island covers an area of about 750,000 square meters, which is about the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing and can accommodate about 12,000 residents. The whole consists of 6 hexagonal floating island units, each of which has infrastructure such as medical care, education, and shopping.
The envisioned Busan artificial floating island is more advanced and more environmentally friendly. Building facilities generally use wooden planks and bamboo, use solar panels to obtain energy, and realize the circular flow of water, food, waste, and energy, and achieve self-sufficiency in all aspects. The base, unlike floating islands in the Maldives, is an ecological rock that is stronger than cement and can withstand floods, tsunamis and Category 5 hurricanes.
Previously, there were also news reports that the mainland intends to build an artificial floating island at sea in Shenzhen, but no further progress has been seen so far. It may be that the mainland does not need to face a sea level crisis like the Maldives and South Korea, and it is not so anxious as they are. However, in order to better develop marine resources, artificial floating islands may be very important in the future.
I believe that in the near future, we will also consider building our own artificial floating islands. #马尔代夫 #