The atoll nation of Maldives is creating an innovative floating city that mitigates the effects of climate change and stays on top of rising sea levels.
The Maldives Floating City is designed by Netherlands-based Dutch Docklands and will feature thousands of waterfront residences and services floating along a flexible, functional grid across a 200-hectare lagoon.
Such a development is particularly vital for countries such as Maldives – an archipelago of 25 low-lying coral atolls in the Indian Ocean that is also the lowest-lying nation in the world. More than 80% of the country’s land area lies at less than one metre above sea level – meaning rising sea levels and coastal erosion pose a threat to its very existence.
May 19, 2021
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Threatened by rising sea levels, the Maldives is building a floating city
(Credit: Unsplash)
This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.
Author: Natalie Marchant, Writer, Formative Content
The waterfront residences will float on a flexible grid across a 200-hectare lagoon.
Such innovative developments could prove vital in helping atoll nations, such as the Maldives, fight the impact of climate change.
Dutch company is also testing the technology in the Netherlands.
Last month, government officials in the island nation of the Maldives officially unveiled plans to build the first fully floating island city of its kind. Could the ambitious experiment be a blueprint for how we’ll live in the future as climate change continues to raise the global sea level?
As “arguably the lowest-lying country in the world,” according to NASA the average elevation is just 3.3 feet above sea level the Maldives, an island republic in the northern Indian Ocean, will soon have to rely on sustainable housing. In virtually any simulation of the near future, the over 1,000 individual islands that make up the Maldives will be some of the first to disappear below the rising sea level.
Artist s rendition of the Maldives Floating City (Credit: https://maldivesfloatingcity.com)
The annual 3-to 4-millimeter rise in sea levels is expected to impact many coastal communities in the coming decades. However, few are as vulnerable as the Republic of the Maldives, a collection of more than a thousand picturesque islands in the Indian Ocean. NASA researchers believe that parts of what is arguably the lowest-lying country in the world will become uninhabitable by 2050, due to wave-driven flooding and limited freshwater. To combat the inevitable, the government recently unveiled plans for the world s first true floating island city.
The structures will be protected from tides by the surrounding islands (Credit: maldivesfloatingcity.com)