Threatened by rising sea levels, the Maldives is building a floating city
- 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.
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.
Sustainable design
Developed with the Maldives government, the first-of-its kind “island city” will be based in a warm-water lagoon just 10 minutes by boat from the capital Male and its international airport.
Dutch Docklands worked with urban planning and architecture firm Waterstudio, which is developing floating social housing in the Netherlands, to create a water-based urban grid built to evolve with the changing needs of the country.
What's the World Economic Forum doing about the ocean?
Our ocean covers 70% of the world’s surface and accounts for 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. We can't have a healthy future without a healthy ocean - but it's more vulnerable than ever because of climate change and pollution.
Tackling the grave threats to our ocean means working with leaders across sectors, from business to government to academia.
The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the World Resources Institute, convenes the Friends of Ocean Action, a coalition of leaders working together to protect the seas. From a programme with the Indonesian government to cut plastic waste entering the sea to a global plan to track illegal fishing, the Friends are pushing for new solutions.
Climate change is an inextricable part of the threat to our oceans, with rising temperatures and acidification disrupting fragile ecosystems. The Forum runs a number of initiatives to support the shift to a low-carbon economy, including hosting the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, who have cut emissions in their companies by 9%.
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Maldives thrives on tourism and the same coral reefs that attract holiday makers also provide the inspiration for much of the development. The hexagon-shaped floating segments are, in part, modelled on the distinctive geometry of local coral.
These are connected to a ring of barrier islands, which act as breakers below the water, thereby lessening the impact of lagoon waves and stabilizing structures on the surface.
“The Maldives Floating City does not require any land reclamation, therefore has a minimal impact on the coral reefs,” says Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives, speaker of parliament and Climate Vulnerable Forum Ambassador for Ambition.
“What’s more, giant new reefs will be grown to act as water breakers. Our adaptation to climate change mustn't destroy nature but work with it, as the Maldives Floating City proposes. In the Maldives, we cannot stop the waves, but we can rise with them.”
Affordable homes
The islands’ seafaring past also influenced the design of the buildings, which will all be low-rise and face the sea.
A network of bridges, canals and docks will provide access across the various segments and connect shops, homes and services across the lagoon.
Construction is due to start in 2022 and the development will be completed in phases over the next five years – with a hospital and school eventually being built.
Renewable energy will power the city through a smart grid and homes will be priced from $250,000 in a bid to attract a wide range of buyers including local fishermen, who have called the area home for centuries.
Rising sea levels
In March, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that oceans were under threat like never before and emphasized the increasing risk of rising sea levels.
Around 40% of the global population live within 100 kilometres of the coast.
WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas said there was an “urgent need” to protect communities from coastal hazards, such as waves, storm surge and sea level rise via multi-hazard warning systems and forecasting.
Atoll nations are even more at risk than other island-based countries, with the Maldives one of just a handful – alongside Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific – that have built societies on the coral-and-sand rims of sunken volcanoes.
So-called king tides – which can wash over parts of habitable land – and the storms that drive them are getting higher and more intense due to climate change.
Connecting communities for ocean resilience
The World Economic Forum, Friends of Ocean Action and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean will explore how to take bold action for a healthy, resilient and thriving seas during the Virtual Ocean Dialogues 2021 on 25-26 May.
The online event will focus on the vital importance of mainstreaming the ocean in global environment-focused forums and summits – from climate and biodiversity, to food and science.
Miami's best real estate is under threat from rising sea levels, so the wealthy are moving to higher ground
Ivory Artis was told in May he had 60 days to vacate his apartment after a capital firm bought the building.
When an apartment building collapsed just 25 minutes from his home, Ivory Artis was grappling with the potential loss of his own apartment in Miami.
As sea levels rise, prime beach real estate has been losing its cachet.
Developers have started looking inland, in marginalised communities like Ivory's, to build luxury homes for the coastal elite.
This February, a California-based capital firm bought the three-storey building where Ivory has kept a one-bedroom apartment for over 16 years.
In May, the new manager notified the tenants they had 60 days to vacate the property. Two days later, he told them it was now 30.
Ivory, like the other tenants he knows, had been consistently making his payments on time.
The building was in need of repairs, but structural issues weren't the reason the manager gave for pushing the residents out. In fact, the manager didn't give a reason at all.
"We're people. We're not some pawn in a game. We are real human people, with feelings," Ivory said.
Residents say the manager offered $US1,500 ($2,040) to anyone willing to leave early.
But for seven households, that sum seemed too small to cover the cost of packing up and the additional money they would need to pay for rent in the area. They had been paying $US550, but the going rate in the area has spiked in recent months to $US1,700.
Ivory can see dazzling ocean-view towers out his dusty windows, past the leak that makes his walk slick with algae, over the empty lots dotted with trash and feral chickens.
For the past decade, the gap between those sleek, shiny pockets and his own historically black neighbourhood has been slowly diminishing.
Across Miami, it's reached a point where it's starting to displace long-time residents, offering a preview of what could be a survival-of-the-wealthiest world as climate change advances.
Building collapse could be a sign of things to come
All around Miami, signs of climate change are visible to the naked eye.
Sea levels around the region are rising an average of 9 millimetres a year, according to analysis of federal data.
That's triple the global average, leaving more than 120,000 properties at risk of being lost completely.
In the past two decades, so-called sunny day flooding has jumped more than 320 per cent, becoming such a common occurrence that residents can be seen paddleboarding down paved roads at high tide.
Much of the city is built on reclaimed wetlands and barrier islands, where engineers once chopped down protective mangroves and trucked in sand to cover over porous limestone.
Chloride ions, found in sea salt, are carried to the base of these structures by flowing water or humid hurricane winds. Chloride can eat through concrete, rusting metal bars and leaving a building's foundation shaky.
It's the kind of wear and tear that one can see walking through the city's historic districts, where pastel-painted art deco buildings lend the city its raffish flair.
Just north of the city, in Surfside, a condominium (a name for the popular Miami housing model, where tenants own their individual apartments) collapsed suddenly in June, claiming 98 lives.
Investigations into the cause are still ongoing, but that hasn't stopped much of the public from pointing to climate change, especially an old academic report showing that the ground beneath Champlain Towers was sinking.
Florida has some of America's strictest building codes, but it's also notoriously lax on regulation — there's no statewide requirement to inspect buildings as they age.
Immediately following the collapse, officials called for buildings older than 40 years to be inspected for safety within 45 days.
That prompted another apartment tower to evacuate its residents immediately, leaving them 15 minutes to gather their belongings.
It signalled to the public that there was plenty to fear.
"[Climate change] is suddenly on the front of peoples' minds again," said Taylor Snider, who works with SMASH, a local non-profit that advocates for affordable housing.
"I've been in community spaces where people and leaders are willing to say, straight up, that this is climate change.
"And we're starting to hear people say, 'I don't want to live on the coast anymore.'"
Vulnerable communities likely to be displaced
Gary Mormino, a University of South Florida professor who writes about the state's history, says proximity to the water has always been a key selling point.
"There's something about states with hundreds of miles of coastline, sunshine, palm trees, gentle winters," he said.
Miami is bordered on two sides by the ocean and on one side by the Everglades, America's largest subtropical rainforest (aka: swamp).
Increased immigration in the last two decades was already squeezing the population of roughly 6 million, making Miami into the third least affordable city in the US.
And COVID-related unemployment isn't helping the residents sustain that cost of living.
Roughly 16 per cent of Miami's households are behind on rent, according to the New York Times. They owe, on average, $US4,800.
Still, demand for housing keeps fuelling new development in the city.
And the sites most attractive to big investors were once the least desirable. Miles away from the beaches, they offer a rare bit of elevation and protection from flooding.
"The two neighbourhoods that are most rapidly shifting also happen to be both historically black neighbourhoods. This is a racialised issue," Zaina Alsous, a community organiser with the Worker's Center, said.
"It's not as if the land has magically shifted. These values are being assigned under the guise of a profit motive.
The region's fastest-gentrifying neighbourhood is Little Haiti, where roughly 75 per cent of residents are black.
Forty-seven per cent of the neighbourhood's 30,000 residents also live below the poverty line.
But Little Haiti sits 10 feet above sea level — a fact that was noted in an approved proposal for "Magic City".
The new 18-acre residential district is starting to replace Little Haiti's one- and two-storey businesses and rental units with 25-storey towers.
Already, home values in Little Haiti have increased by nearly 20 per cent.
Racialised housing hardships follow a pattern
For Little Haiti resident Linda Sippio, the thought of losing her neighbourhood brings to mind something once said by civil rights activist Frannie Lou Hamer.
"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," she said.
One reason why Miami's inland communities are predominantly black is that black residents were barred from most waterfront neighbourhoods altogether up until the 1960s.
Linda, who is 67, spent much of her childhood away from those communities, in the Miami housing projects known as "Liberty City".
She watched as her white neighbours fled the suburbs during desegregation in the 1970s.
Her friends and family suffered the ravages of the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. And black homeowners, herself included, fell prey to mortgage schemes during 2008's foreclosure crisis.
Now her mother, who still lives near Liberty City, gets letters from dozens of developers asking if she wants to sell her house.
"Now all of a sudden they see [Liberty City] as prime land because there's no sea level rise," she said.
"They want to give her peanuts for it. Just crumbs. And even if she did sell, where would she go?
"You can't afford rent anywhere."
Linda says it feels like the next wave of "discrimination, prejudice and systemic racism" that's going to crash over black communities across the US.
"One thing I've learned is that, when redevelopment happens, it's not for you … there's never been any sort of justice for these communities."
Halting retreat from the shore may stave off displacement
One possible way to prevent displacement could be climate-proofing coastal dwellings.
It's a challenge Miami is eagerly exploring, from government task forces to avant garde architectural competitions.
The highly respected Army Corps of Engineers, for example, suggested big concrete walls between neighbourhoods to blunt the elements. That didn't go over well in a city known for style.
In the immediate wake of the collapse, those choosing to stay in their oceanfront condos are seeing their monthly fees skyrocket as associations scramble to make repairs.
Even knowing the consequences of not investing in maintenance, not everyone is reportedly on board.
"I think for many Floridians, the idea was that you could move into a condominium and never have to mow your grass again," Dr Morimino said.
"If something goes wrong with the plumbing, the condominium board will take care of it.
"It's all small 'd' democratic decisions made by the people who own the units … The question is, are the decisions made by condominium boards in the best interests of the condo dwellers?"
Dr Mormino suspects that politicians will need to step up to handle the issue, which could cause headaches for the state's fiercely anti-regulation Republican leaders.
That approach worries activists like Ms Snider, who instead advocates for granting tenants more legal organising power.
She says increasing government inspections, though necessary for safety, could "give some affordable housing spots a pretense to evict tenants completely" if not done properly.
Like its climate, Miami's social fabric will keep changing
This is the assumed cause for eviction, back in Overtown, at Ivory Artis's building.
"They just want to bring in people who'll pay $US1,000 or $US1,200 for a one-bedroom."
Mr Artis's sister, who lives just a few blocks over, has offered to take him in until he can find another affordable spot, if he can at all.
Some of the others explored the possibility of leaving Miami entirely.
There's reason to believe that option — abandoning a spot that once shimmered with the promise of a better life — may be a route taken by some high-income shore dwellers as well.
Half of the units in the Surfside building, for example, were owned by snowbirds — Americans who travel south during the winter and keep primary houses in other states.
Several told reporters they're not planning to come back to the area.
Even if they did come back, the city wouldn't quite be the same as when they left. A few of Ivory's neighbours, residents who serve as the backbone of the labour market, will be priced out.
And the ocean visible through the condo windows will have risen just a little bit higher.
Sea-Level Rise Becoming A Hazard For Suburban South Florida Neighborhoods Far From Ocean
But neighborhoods 20 miles inland are starting to feel the impact, as the Atlantic Ocean’s higher elevation makes it harder for drainage canals to keep them dry.
Sea-level rise may appear to be a problem only for coastal residents, a hazard that comes with the awesome views and easy access to the beach.
But neighborhoods 20 miles inland are starting to feel the impact, as the Atlantic Ocean’s higher elevation makes it harder for drainage canals to keep them dry. The problem showed up last year in Tropical Storm Eta, when floodwater remained in southwest Broward neighborhoods for days, partly because the elevated ocean blocked canals from draining the region.
“It was pretty scary,” said Barb Besteni, who lives in far west Miramar. “I stepped out of house into ankle-deep water. It came three-fourths up the driveway. I’d never seen the water that high. It was scary because I didn’t know if it was going to continue to rise.”
Although her house in the Sunset Lakes community stands at the edge of the Everglades, the Atlantic’s higher elevation prevented it from draining as efficiently as in the past.
“It took a very, very long time to recede,” she said. “Two or three weeks to recede to normal levels.”
The South Florida Water Management District, which operates the big canals that sweep water into the ocean, submitted a funding request to the state this week for fixing the system, with the preliminary list of projects carrying a price tag of more than $1.5 billion. Although expensive, the pumps and other improvements would help restore the efficiency of a system built after World War II that has become more difficult to operate at a time of rising sea levels.
“When ocean water is higher, we cannot discharge, so we close the gates to avoid ocean water coming inside,” said Carolina Maran, district resiliency officer for the South Florida Water Management District. “During Eta, it was much higher than normal. And that means again that we cannot discharge to the ocean and that diminished our capacity to prevent and address flooding.”
A tropical storm overwhelms flood-control systems
Although there’s never a great time to endure 15-plus inches of rain, Tropical Storm Eta struck South Florida at a particularly challenging period.
The ground already had been saturated by previous storms. And coastal waters were undergoing a king tide, a phenomenon that occurs when the positions of sun and moon combine to produce the highest tides of the year. As sea levels rise, king tides get higher.
The wide canals that run through Broward and Miami-Dade counties, carrying rainwater to the ocean, depend partly on gravity. When rainwater raises the level of the canal on the inland side, water managers lift the gate dividing it from the ocean side of the canal and the water flows away, eventually reaching the Atlantic.
But when the Atlantic side is high, there may be no difference in elevations between each side of the gate, so when it’s lifted, the water doesn’t move. Or worse, the Atlantic side could be higher, so lifting the gate would allow ocean water to pour inland.
During Tropical Storm Eta, staffers at the South Broward Drainage District found themselves consulting tide charts to determine when they could open the gates and discharge water.
“We had to close our gate because the downstream gets equal to our upstream,” said Kevin Hart, district director of the South Broward Drainage District, which operates the canal system that feeds into the larger canals that drain into the ocean. “We don’t want to drain in, we want to drain out. We’ve got to close our gate.
“We were looking at tide charts — Low tides going to be at 2 o’clock and at 5 or 6 we can see the levels dropping and open our gate again.”
South Florida’s aging flood-control system confronts sea-level rise
Constructed largely in the 1940s and 1950s, South Florida’s drainage system has been an efficient — some would say too efficient — system for keeping a once-swampy part of Florida dry.
The system contributed to the decline of the Everglades, at times flooding the area, at other times drying it out. But it accomplished what it was supposed to do, keeping the land dry for cities such as Pembroke Pines and Miramar by swiftly moving rainwater through a system of canals to the ocean.
But now that movement of water isn’t that swift and doesn’t always happen. As a result, people in cities without ocean views are finding that the water level of the Atlantic Ocean can affect their homes.
Although cities are installing pumps and other flood-control devices, they need capacity in the canals to get rid of the water.
“No matter what we do, if they don’t lower those canals so our water can escape, there’s nothing to be done,” said Angelo Castillo, a Pembroke Pines commissioner. “We can spend as much money as we want on drainage but if they can’t access the canals because the canals won’t take that capacity, nothing that we do in terms of conveying water faster to those canals will work.”
Sea levels have been rising at an accelerating rate, largely due to climate change caused by pollution from cars, power plants and other sources of heat-trapping gases. A NOAA study says global sea levels have gone up 3.4 inches from 1993 to 2019.
In South Florida, estimates from the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, which represents local governments, call for sea levels to rise another 10-17 inches by 2040.
Hoping to revamp the system for an age of rising sea levels, the water management district has proposed improvements at 23 drainage structures in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. They range from southern Miami-Dade County to the Hillsboro Canal, which separates Broward and Palm Beach counties.
The major projects would be the addition of powerful pumps to allow water to be moved to the ocean side of the canal when the ocean is too high to move water by gravity. But these projects are expensive.
The improvements, assuming they go through, could help homeowners with their flood insurance bills. A better drainage system could hold down rates and reduce the number of properties required to get flood insurance.
The water management district is seeking federal and state money for the work. As soon as the first funding comes through, the district plans to start designing the new pumps and other improvement for water-control structures on the canal that drains southern Broward and the one that drains northeast Miami-Dade.
Jennifer Jurado, who oversees climate-change planning for Broward County, said the improvements will help prevent neighborhoods from flooding in future storms, but the region needs to come up with ways to keep as much water as possible rather than just pumping it away.
“It’s trying to ensure the system works at least as well as it was intended,” she said. “It’s a huge part of the fix. Our system can’t just pump it out. We have to be able to store as much of it as we can because the rain that falls is the rain we use for our water supply. We need to capture and store that water, in addition to providing flood relief.
