When I google this, it talks about “creating” land. How is that even possible to just create a land on the sea?
In: Other
In many areas along the coastline, the water is fairly shallow for quite a distance into the sea. By shallow, it means less than 25m deep. To reclaim land, what usually happens is that a retaining wall is built to isolate the area to be reclaimed. That wall can be made of iron piles, concrete or even rock and dirt. Once the wall is complete, dirt and rock are carried sometimes by barges and then deposited into that isolated area. Of course quite a lot will be needed so this needs to be excavated usually from nearby hills. This rock and dirt displaces the water and eventually it rises above sea level and new land is created.
Reclaiming land is phenomenally expensive so it is typically only done as a last resort and rarely in huge amounts (except perhaps the Netherlands). It only works if the water is shallow – it is impossible to reclaim land in deep water. So we cannot reclaim land in the middle of the ocean typically where the waters are hundreds or thousands of meters deep.
Latest Answers