How Singapore Conquers Land That Doesn't Exist

the year is 1965. singapore has just been forced to become an independent country after being kicked out of a union with malaysia and this is what they look like now if you look at the numbers from 580 square kilometers in the 1960s to 720 square kilometers in 2017 you'll realize that singapore has grown almost 25 in landmass in just 52 years this is insane but the journey of growing from essentially a tiny speck of dust in southeast asia to while a larger speck of dust has not been without challenge and controversy you see the singapore we have today is a culmination of aggressive land reclamation projects that started as far back as the early 1800s when sir stamford raffles of britain first docked in singapore in 1819 he came with the goal of developing a british port to rival that of the dutch what was there instead was land mainly consisting of uninhabitable mangrove swamps and a small fishing village but raffles and his legion of officers wasted no time getting to work and reshaping this land into the singapore we know today the first land reclamation project kicked off in 1822 where raffles focused on the southern banks of the singapore river he hired 300 workers to construct an embankment along the river's edge to stop any high tides from flooding the mainland the project took roughly four months to complete but it gave rise to the crescent shaped area that we know today as boat key this region together with a small hill that was leveled by labourers is now raffle's place the heart of singapore's financial district these types of projects have happened over the past few decades and resulted in some of the most famous parts of singapore that we know today such as the marina bay but why are they even happening well there's a few reasons and the first and most obvious one being space since singapore's independence their population has risen from 1.65 million to almost 6 million people today they're the second most densely populated country on earth with 21 646 people per square mile only behind monaco there's simply not enough space for everyone in the near future it's this limitation that's pushed for example singapore's ministry of national development to publish the 2013 land use plan a strategy predicting that about 21.6 miles of new land is required by 2030 to accommodate the projected rise in population to 6.9 million people the second reason is the fear of sinking now as a result of climate change the sea level around singapore is predicted to rise by more than three feet by 2100 they may not be at risk as much as countries like the maldives or netherlands but 30 of singapore including their central business district is less than 15 feet above sea level and these areas will be susceptible to flooding as the sea level rises along with tides and storms maybe it doesn't sound like too much of a problem right now but it is or at least it will be in the future the urgency of the situation was first emphasized by prime minister li sien long at the national day rally in 2019 when he announced that a hundred billion dollars or more would be needed to shore up singapore's coastal defenses in the coming years all new developments will have to be built at least 13 feet above sea level up from 10 feet previously and critical infrastructure specifically has to be built 16 feet above sea level we've seen it now with the changi airport terminal 5 and tuas port meeting these requirements as they're being built and finally the project known as long island was announced it'll be a reclaimed island along the south eastern coast from marina east to changi and could include a reservoir to boost singapore's water supply and protect its coastline from rising sea levels barrages will be constructed to connect the islands too while engineering drawings have yet to be done singapore is hoping it can also double as housing spaces for 10 to 15 000 people but of course their pursuit of land doesn't simply end there with long island in fact singapore's government has set a target of a seven to eight percent increase of the country's land area by 2030 putting it at 300 square miles their total vision can be illustrated with this photo here with the white land being what singapore originally was the light red land being what singapore has reclaimed to present day and the dark red land what singapore plans to eventually reclaim so how does land reclamation actually work well first of all despite the accepted terminology land cannot be reclaimed from the ocean by the magic of sovereign rights it needs to be built for the most part the method of land reclamation by singapore has been done by the process of infilling where an area is filled with large amounts of heavy rock and or cement of which a large component is sand then further filled with clay and dirt until the desired height is reached but there's a few huge problems with this now the first being the world is running out of sand as ridiculous as it sounds sand is one of the most important yet under-appreciated materials on earth globally we use up to 50 billion tons of it every year making it the second largest resource extracted and traded by volume each year behind only water it's the primary raw material that modern cities are built from and everyone wants it especially singapore they are the largest importer of sand worldwide and the world's biggest user per person importing over 517 million tons of sand over the last 20 years but this thirst for sand has led to tensions in the region you see singapore ran out of their own sand long ago with the exception of a strategic sand reserve for emergencies lying somewhere in the area bedok as pictured here but this has resulted in most of the sand singapore has used coming from their south east asian neighbours including indonesia malaysia vietnam thailand and cambodia they've taken so much of this resource though that it's now actually destroying some of these countries for example according to the united nations environment program sand exports to singapore were reportedly responsible for the disappearance of 24 indonesian sand islands keep in mind that just 0.6 miles of new ground requires 37.5 million cubic meters of sand or around 1.4 million dump trucks worth that basically translates to transferring territories from one country to another as a result most of singapore's neighbours have banned exporting sand to singapore forcing them to look at further countries like myanmar china and the philippines another big problem is that in order for land reclamation to work you basically have to completely destroy biodiversity land reclamation destroys the seabed as it is extracted from the sea to be turned into dry land coral reefs which are home to millions of flora and fauna in the oceans are also destroyed in the process prior to singapore's land reclamations of the past several decades coral reefs covered an estimated 39 square miles by 2002 that number had dropped to 21 square miles and today it sits at about 3.86 or when stamford raffles arrived in singapore in 1819 the land was 13 mangrove swamp today only 0.5 of it remains that's a 96 loss with the remaining mostly being in the military or state land so what does this all mean what i guess i'm trying to say is that this method of land reclamation isn't viable long term now enter the empoldering technique since november 2016 singapore has started to adopt a different method of land reclamation known as the polder development method it's been famously used by the netherlands as early as the 14th century with great success but perhaps the most appealing part of it is the fact that it requires less sand for it to work this photo describes the differences probably better than i ever can instead of simply using more sand to raise the land out of being low lying you rather create a large seawall to keep sea water out from the land known as a polder while drains water pumping systems and canals control the water levels it also helps to protect against rising sea levels as well but sadly biodiversity is still completely destroyed with this technique singapore has only started one project with this technique though building a polder on the north western tip of palau te kong to expand their military training base by 2 000 acres this map shows how everything is planned out and it's set to be completed by the end of 2024. make no mistake this is just the beginning of singapore's land reclamation via poldering and they most likely will reach their goal of increasing to 300 square miles by 2030 one way or another a possible concern though is that as singapore reclaims more land they are slowly encroaching on the shipping lanes and territorial limits of malaysia in the north and indonesia in the south these were also the first two countries to ban sand exports to singapore having done so over 15 years ago so what might come of this if anything at all i guess we'll just have to wait and find out thank you for watching

Channel: Versed

Views: 336,831

Keywords: singapore, singapore land reclamation, singapore sand, geopolitics

Id: u6iqc6YF5dE

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 02 2022