What’s the future of waterfront cities?
- Dr. Chafia Ferhat
- August 23, 2023
- Sustainability
- Climate Change, Dr. Chafia Ferhat, FENN DESIGNERS, Land Reclamation, Limited resources, Natural disasters, Storms Water Front, Waterfront Cities, Waterfront Development
- 1 Comment
I have written a couple of articles recently about climate change and waterfront cities; wondering why are people still reclaiming part of the sea and building to no end, why are properties fronting water still fetching huge prices?
I think we are not really totally convinced that there is a real problem; it’s called global warming and it’s signs and manifestations are becoming visible for all of us to see.
The recent Super storm Sandy in New York city has broken every record of storms known this century, it’s bigger than Katrina and Irene combined. It has devastated the Caribbean, New Jersey, Manhattan and other major places in the area. Like the latest tsunami in Japan these natural phenomenon are surpassing all scientific records and expectations.
According to National geographic, Superstorm Sandy almost took Manhattan shores to their original lines, where the island was before all the extra land reclamation done over the decades.
There is no doubts that we are just at the beginning of new wave of super size hurricanes, storms and tsunamis and that shore lines are becoming not safe for human habitats.
New ideas of creating floating cities and trying to master the great ocean to find new land for our ever growing populations are very valiant, but if scientists are failing to predict the magnitude of these natural phenomenon and they can’t comprehend why they are getting bigger and causing so much more damage, how can we start planning floating cities? How do we engineer them, how do we make them safe?
Are cities better planned in higher grounds, in arid lands, in deserts and mountains instead?
Or infact, we should focus our energy and ingenuity in harnessing the land, minimizing our footprint on earth and find better ways to grow our food, control our population growth and educate everyone about earth limited resources.
joy
Arid land every time – forget mountains and floaters.