Budhy Nurgianto (Indonesia), Nabilah Said (Singapore)
Published on
May 4, 2023
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Reclamation: A flawed solution
A deep dive into the rationale behind some of Asia's reclamation projects, the toll they take on our environment and communities, and the search for more sustainable alternatives.
Coordinator: Kuang Keng Kuek Ser, Krisna Pradipta Reporters: Budhy Nurgianto (Indonesia), Nabilah Said (Singapore) Published on 4 May 2023
Reclamation is seen as a solution for countries to deal with increasing land demands, by expanding their territory and rehabilitating previously uninhabitable lands or seas. Yet, the process guzzles an alarming amount of sand, causing massive environmental damage as well as a rise of transnational criminal syndicates trading in illegal sand.
Coastlines, ecosystems, and entire populations are now facing adverse impacts due to increased sand-mining activity, with one of the major driving forces being land reclamation. This practice of creating new land at sea is often touted as a solution to urban expansion and climate change.
Historically, reclamation has been a cornerstone of development in many cities. Countries like the Netherlands and Japan have been reclaiming lands as early as the 15th century by building dykes and burying rocks.
While agriculture was the main driver for these early projects, land reclamation in Asian cities in the last three decades have been driven by rapid population growth and economic development characterized by construction of ports, airports, tourism infrastructure and eco-city development.
A recent study found that almost 2,500 sq km of land had been reclaimed in urban coastal cities (those with populations above one million) in Asia from 2000 to 2020.
It has been reported that a square kilometer of reclaimed land would require anything from 1.5 million to 37.5 million cubic meters of sand depending on the conditions, but ERC is not able to trace the source of this research.
Almost 90% of this artificial land was reclaimed in China alone, mostly concentrated in coastal cities like Shanghai, Tianjin and Ningbo, according to data from University of Southampton research fellow Dhritiraj Sengupta, who has been tracking coastal land reclamation worldwide.
Reclamation projects in China were regarded as an effective means to provide space for industrial development in the country. In another study published in 2015, GDP of China’s coastal cities is found to positively correlate with land reclamation: more than 7,500 sq km of coastal land was reclaimed in the whole country (urban cities and elsewhere) between 1985 and 2010 which correlates with a rapid increase in coastal GDP during the same period.
After China, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Singapore reclaimed the highest amount of coastal lands during the same period.
For Singapore, an island nation of 5.6 million people, land reclamation has become a necessity to address population growth and economic development.
Between 1819 and 2020, Singapore’s landmass grew over 25%, from 578 sq km to 728 sq km. The map shows lands reclaimed
before colonial times (1957), from 1957 to 1990, from 1990 to 2023, and future reclamation projects.
This expansion has helped the country become one of the richest economies in the world. [Data source: Data.gov.sg, The World Bank]
According to the Singaporean Ministry of National Development’s Land Use Plan in 2013, the city-state will need to grow by about 5% to 766 sq km to support an anticipated population that could reach between 6.5 million and 6.9 million by 2030.
Singapore was the world’s top sand importer several times between 2013 to 2021, and it was consistently in the list of top 5 importers. Trade data from 2013 to 2021 showed that the city-state sourced its sand mostly from Southeast Asia, with Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines its top suppliers.
But after many of these neighboring countries started tightening regulations around sand exports due to environmental concerns, Singapore turned to Cambodia, a move which was sharply criticized in a 2010 Global Witness report for “driving an ecologically and socially devastating sand-dredging industry in Cambodia”. Several years later, Cambodia would officially ban sand exports.
As prices continue to soar to meet demand, the highly profitable trade has led to the rise of unethical and illegal mining in source countries, devastating- coastal communities, local industries and ecosystems. In India, some illegal sand-mining activities are controlled by criminal gangs known as “sand mafias” that have allegedly murdered journalists with impunity.
Coordinator
Kuang Keng Kuek Ser, Krisna Pradipta
Reporters
Budhy Nurgianto (Indonesia), Nabilah Said (Singapore)
Published on
May 4, 2023
Share
The Case for Reclamation
Despite the problems that occur in sourcing sand, many nations have turned to reclamation to address problems surrounding population growth and the climate crisis.
According to a United Nations report, steady population growth is putting pressure on existing lands used for habitats and food production. Another report given to the UN Security Council projects that 250 million to 400 million people will likely need new homes within 80 years due to rising sea levels.
This has led to a slew of reclamation projects aimed at protecting populations from the effects of climate change, such as the Maldivian Addu Atoll project, Denmark’s Lynetteholm and Nigeria’s Eko Atlantic.
Lynetteholm’s artificial land would defend Copenhagen against storm surges from the north, as the low-lying Danish capital is threatened by rising sea levels. In the Maldives, the Addu Atoll project expands the increasingly sinking atoll with 194 hectares of new land, including four artificial islands within the lagoon. Similarly, Nigeria’s Eko Atlantic is an endeavor to protect the coastline of Victoria Island from sea erosion.
The Netherlands, a proponent of land reclamation, has similarly reclaimed areas for climate defense in the past. Flevoland, a 2,412 sq km province east of Amsterdam, was a reclaimed area built between 1918 and 1986 due to North Sea surges that threatened both human lives and food production.
More recently, the country has been building a 1,300-hectare set of artificial islands in a lake called the Markermeer, with the last three islands set to be established in 2023. Built as a nature reserve for birds and fishes, the artificial archipelago was developed as an alternative to a previously canceled reclamation project proposed from the 1940s called the Markerwaard.
However, this trend of reclamation has alarmed environmentalists in each country. Anti-Lynetteholm activists outline a possibility of desalination of the Baltic Sea, which could affect marine life in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and Russia . In Nigeria, Eko Atlantic was also subject to controversy as ocean surges that happened to neighboring islands were blamed on the project due to the change in oceanography that it had caused.
For the Maldives, its problems come from the sourcing the sand needed to build its artificial islands. Dutch dredging company Van Oord is set to suck the sand needed for the Addu Atoll project from two designated areas within the Maldivian lagoon, dredging around 6.8 million cubic meters of sand, equivalent to digging over 1,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
An open letter by Maldivian environmentalists alleges that Van Oord would need to dredge the seabed three or four times every day in the lagoon, resulting in significant sedimentation that would have direct negative impacts on both tourism and bait fishery, not to mention other ecological losses due to the construction of the reclaimed area itself. In Dubai, the environmental impact of its reclamation projects led to the country having to import sand from Australia. As desert sand is too smooth to be used in land reclamation, Dubai had initially mined sand off of its coast. And when they ran out of marine sand, they started shipping the stuff in from Australia.
The Cost of Reclamation
A 2022 study shows that reclamation projects have led to a net loss of 4,000 sq km of global wetland habitats, such as mangroves, tidal flats and tidal marshes. The same study places Asia as the most affected region, with 68.6% of losses attributed to coastal land conversion in just three countries: China, Myanmar and Indonesia.
The Indonesian Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries has directly credited reclamation as an option to maintain or increase land value in coastal areas and small islands affected by environmental damage. The government already has plans to reclaim approximately 2.7 million hectares of land by 2040, according to a report.
“Reclamation changes the face of the city into a clean coastal city as well as an attractive, new tourist center that adds benefits to the community and businesses,” wrote the ministry’s reclamation guidelines.
However, local NGOs are actively fighting these developments, citing ecological destruction and adverse impacts on local communities. The same report estimates that nearly 750,000 fishing families have already been affected by reclamation projects in Indonesia.
“Reclamation is problematic,” said Susan Herawati, general secretary of the People’s Coalition for Fishing Justice (KIARA). “It clearly negatively affects our ecology … and it can’t be seen as a solution.”
She added: “Indonesia is an archipelago. There are many coastal cities that do not need reclamation. But it has become a trend due to the popularity of waterfront cities in developed countries.”
She pointed out that one of Indonesia’s largest reclamation projects, the Jakarta Bay reclamation project, is one example of wide-ranging environmental effects from reclamation. The project involves a planned group of 17 artificial islands off the coast of Jakarta Bay. It was set to dredge 330 million cubic meters of sand, sourced from the coast of Banten, to build 6,867 hectares of artificial land, costing US$40 million.
Sand fills for Indonesian reclamation are usually sourced domestically in mines located in the coasts of numerous islands in the archipelago, unlike other countries that need to import sand.
“There are several ecological and social problems with this project,” the Indonesian activist explained. “Saying that it doesn’t affect the environment would be a lie.”
A tidal current simulation model by Alan F. Koropitan, an associate professor at the Department of Marine Science and Technology at IPB University, showed that the reclamation plans would potentially erode small islands off the coast of Jakarta to the point of disappearance, and accumulate waste alongside sedimentation in the river basin.
Construction in the fourth artificial island of the Jakarta Bay Reclamation Project in 2019. Photo by TEMPO/Muhammad Hidayat
KIARA’s findings showed that the reclamation plans would also affect over 56,309 households in coastal areas in Jakarta, Tangerang and East Java. In a study conducted with Social Need Education and Human Awareness (SNEHA), KIARA interviewed residents of a fishing village in Muara Angke, North Jakarta. The residents were worried that they would have to become wage laborers as there were plans to relocate them to new areas with no ocean access.
Similar issues can be seen during the sourcing of sand fills. In 2017, a group of fishermen staged a protest at the Banten governor’s office to oppose a marine sand mine off the coast of Lontar village in Serang, Banten. The mine is a fill source for the Jakarta Bay reclamation project, and sucks marine sand from Lontar waters.
“The damage is doubled in Indonesia,” said Susan Herawati about the sand fill required by reclamation mega projects. “ When [companies] start to dredge, the area becomes incredibly polluted.”
Lontar fishermen complained that due to the mines, they were forced to go further to Tangerang to catch fish, as the local fishing area became polluted.
Other environmental effects from these mines include beach abrasion, floods, loss of marine biodiversity, and even whole islands disappearing.
Abrasion caused by sand mines in South Morotai, Halmahera, Maluku. Photo by TEMPO/Budhy Nurgianto.
Only four of the 17 planned reclaimed islands were built before the Jakarta provincial government revoked the developers’ licenses in 2018 following a change in the city’s leadership. While the government insists that development has stopped completely, local residents are still cautious of any changes.
A more recent example is the reclamation project in Minanga Bay, Manado, North Sulawesi province. The project will reclaim 5.33 hectares of land in preparation for construction of a 6.7-hectare tourism complex consisting of a hotel, an apartment complex and a mall. Reclamation started in August 2022, with piles of rocks heaped onto the coastline.
The project has had ecological and societal effects. According to a scientific study done by the North Sulawesi Traditional Fisherman Association, the rocks used as the foundation for the fill were heaped onto coral reefs in the bay. Doing so has destroyed the habitats of several sea creatures, including protected species such as the Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadiensis). Traditional fishermen lose access to the sea, thus losing their livelihoods, and their lands are more prone to flooding due to a change in oceanographic conditions, land topography and hydrology.
Rocks heaped onto coral reefs in Minanga Bay, Medan, North Sulawesi. Photo by North Sulawesi Traditional Fisherman Association via KIARA.
“Immediate action [should be] taken in the field by stopping activities and revoking permits in accordance with laws and regulations,” wrote Dr. Rignolda Djamaluddin, the leader of the team who conducted the study, in a letter to the minister of environment and forestry, Siti Nurbaya Bakar. “This immediate action is important because the damage caused by the reclamation is very significant and is permanent.”
Structural Weaknesses
Reclaimed lands aren’t a perfect solution for growing populations or economies either. Structurally, they are vulnerable to liquefaction, a phenomenon that causes solid earth to become liquid during an earthquake. For reclaimed areas, the pressure of earthquakes forces buried water up and rearranges the sand grains and the wet soil underground, creating a wet slurry.
The 2011 Tohoku earthquake caused liquefaction in several reclaimed areas in Tokyo Bay. A study published in the Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering Journal showed that liquefaction had caused ground failures and damage to several structures, ranging from sunk, tilted land structures, such as light fixtures and signal posts, to gaps and cracks in sidewalks. The journal concluded that the types of damage differed based on the techniques used in the reclamation process, such as how long was the reclaimed land made, the type of fill mix, and the sand used in the fill.
Additionally, newly reclaimed lands are still being threatened by rising sea levels. According to a 2020 research by Sengupta and his team, reclaimed coastal lands in South Korea, Singapore, Shanghai and Jakarta have experienced high rates of sinking between 2018 and 2019.
Using satellite imagery data, they found that the Incheon International Airport in South Korea has sunk by 28.5 cm per year while the Pasir Panjang Terminal in Singapore and Shanghai Pudong International Airport in China have experienced land subsidence of 14.7 cm and 12 cm per year respectively. A simulation by Greenpeace Korea predicted that Incheon Airport would be submerged if hit by a big rainstorm or typhoon in the 2030s.
Material Alternatives
Work on sustainable alternatives for reclamation has started in several modern projects. One popular alternative is the Polder method, which involves enclosing an area on the sea with dykes and pumping out the water. A network of drains, reservoirs and pumping stations would keep the polder dry. The method was first used in the Netherlands in the 1500s, with the oldest polder located in Purmerend built in 1612.
The Netherlands have had some success with the method, enclosing 7,000 sq km with modern and traditional polders. However, the method has a high cost of maintenance. Drainage pumps would need to be operational at all times. Dykes would also need to be maintained regularly, as breaches would mean immediate flooding of the area.
Reclamation at Pulau Tekong, an island in Singapore, uses the empoldering method, and it will add 810 hectares of land for the Singapore Armed Forces when completed.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that polders were used in Pulau Tekong to gain “some experience operating one.”
“Polders are one option to protect our eastern coastline,” explained Lee in a speech during Singapore's National Day celebrations in 2019. “You extend out with a polder, build a seawall further out. You not only protect existing low-lying areas, but you extend out and create more land reclaimed from the sea which we can use for housing and other valuable purposes.”
Singapore and Japan are exploring more experimental solutions such as the use of waste to replace sand fills. Tokyo alone generates about three million tonnes of municipal solid waste each year from its 27 wards. Incinerated bottom ash (IBA) generated from this waste is being remodeled as brick material, which could be used as the foundation of reclaimed land. NEWSand, a type of sand made from waste, was developed by Singapore’s National Environment Agency in 2019. However, they are not yet commonly used for reclamation.
Unfortunately, these alternatives do not completely eliminate the need for sand mining. The polder method only reduces the sand volume needed for reclamation by 40%. Total material alternatives remain in the experimental stage, and would still need sand to top the fill past sea level. As such, the ecological price of reclamation remains steep. If we need a sustainable way to deal with population growth and climate change, it needs to be built on something better than sand.
Notes
Reclamation map for Asian cities
The data and map are from the following sources:
Bo Tian, Wenting Wu, Zhaoqing Yang, Yunxuan Zhou. Drivers, trends, and potential impacts of long-term coastal reclamation in China from 1985 to 2010. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2016.01.006
Dhritiraj Sengupta, Young Rae Choi, Bo Tian, Sally Brown, Michael Meadows, Christopher R. Hackney, Abhishek Banerjee, Yingjie Li, Ruishan Chen, Yunxuan Zhou. Mapping 21st Century Global Coastal Land Reclamation. Earth's Future. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002927
Reclamation map for Singapore
The map of changes to Singapore’s land boundaries is a version made available by Kontinentalist for the ERC. For the full map listing all of Singapore’s reclamation projects, please refer to the story.
The map was created using data from various sources. Besides referencing satellite imagery from Google Earth, we relied heavily on:
De Koninck, Rodolphe. Singapore’s Permanent Territorial Revolution: Fifty Years in Fifty Maps. Singapore: NUS Press, 2017.
Prime Minister’s Office - Elections Department. ‘Electoral Boundary 2020’. http://data.gov.sg. Last modified March 13, 2020. Link.
Urban Redevelopment Authority. ‘Space For Our Dreams: Long-Term Plan Review 2021’. Accessed March 30, 2023. PDF Link.
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