Land Reclamation

• Land reclamation refers to changing the natural characteristics of water bodies like oceans, rivers, lakes, or marshes. By transforming marshes or other bodies of water, it might happen inland or along coasts.
• Mumbai, Spain, New York and Palm Jumeirah(UAE) are all prominent examples of reclaimed land.
• Traditional land reclamation involved dikes enclosing tidal marshes, draining to create dry land, and introducing sediment and soil from the mainland, gradually expanding the land into the sea.
• Modern land reclamation methods involve large-scale engineering projects using offshore concrete barrier walls filled with sand, earth, clay, or rock, or hydraulic reclamation using dredged soil mixed with water.

Impact of land reclamation

• Coastal Flooding: Storm surges, the cumulative impacts of global warming and land subsidence, and a sizable percentage of reclaimed land are all at high danger of flooding. This puts the communities live in the recently recovered regions at danger.
• Habitat Destruction: Materials like sand are frequently obtained from river and marine settings for use in land reclamation. The removal of these resources may result in the loss of numerous creatures' habitats and spawning grounds.
• Degradation of water quality: Water bodies are important for controlling neighbourhood water systems, and filling them in can cause these systems to become unbalanced and affect the quantity and quality of water.
• Environmental Disaster: Reclamation of water for urban land use in coastal locations may increase the frequency of earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Solutions

• Ramsar Convention: Strict implementation of Ramsar Convention. The reclamation should be prohibited in the notified wetlands of international importance.
• Environmental Impact Assessment: Since reclamation of water bodies for urban use has severe impact thus thereby environmental impact assessment for such activity must be made mandatory.
• Habitat restoration: Implement compensatory actions to repair or develop alternative habitats in water bodies to boost biodiversity and reduce natural habitat loss.

Conclusion

• Water bodies provide a wide range of essential resources and ecosystem services, including food, water, fibre, flood mitigation, storm protection, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation, in addition to supporting high concentrations of biodiversity etc. Thus, it is essential to preserve them and promote a more sustainable method of development.