Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from , seas, Stream bed or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground, reclaimed land, or land fill.
History
In
ancient Egypt, the rulers of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 2000–1800 BC) undertook a far-sighted land reclamation scheme to increase agricultural output. They constructed
and
to connect the
Faiyum Oasis with the
Bahr Yussef waterway, diverting water that would have flowed into
Lake Moeris and causing gradual evaporation around the lake's edges, creating new farmland from the reclaimed land. A similar land reclamation system using dams and drainage canals was used in the Greek
Lake Copais during the Middle Helladic Period (c. 1900–1600 BC).
Another early large-scale project was the
Beemster in the Netherlands, adding of land in 1612. In Hong Kong, the Praya Reclamation Scheme added of land in 1890 during the second phase of construction. It was one of the most ambitious projects undertaken during the era of colonial Hong Kong.
[Bard, Solomon. 2002 (2002). Voices from the Past: Hong Kong 1842–1918. HK University press. ] Some 20% of land in the
Tokyo Bay area has been reclaimed,
most notably
Odaiba artificial island. The city of Rio de Janeiro was largely built on reclaimed land, as was
Wellington, New Zealand.
Methods
Land reclamation can be achieved by a number of different methods. The simplest method involves filling the area with large amounts of heavy rock and/or
cement, then filling with clay and dirt until the desired height is reached. The process is called "infilling"
and the material used to fill the space is generally called "infill".
Draining of submerged
is often used to reclaim land for
Agriculture use. Deep cement mixing is used typically in situations in which the material displaced by either
dredging or draining may be contaminated and hence needs to be contained. Land dredging is also another method of land reclamation. It is the removal of sediments and debris from the bottom of a body of water. It is commonly used for maintaining reclaimed land masses as sedimentation, a natural process, fills channels and harbors.
Notable instances
Africa
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The Hassan II Mosque is built on reclaimed land.
Asia
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Parts of the coastlines of mainland China, Hong Kong, North Korea and South Korea. It is estimated that nearly 65% of Mudflat around the Yellow Sea have been reclaimed.
[Murray N. J., Clemens R. S., Phinn S. R., Possingham H. P. & Fuller R. A. (2014) Tracking the rapid loss of tidal wetlands in the Yellow Sea. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12, 267–72 ]
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Inland lowlands in the Yangtze valley, including the areas of important cities like Wuhan.
[Brian Lander. State Management of River Dikes in Early China: New Sources on the Environmental History of the Central Yangzi Region . T'oung Pao 100.4-5 (2014): 325–362; Mira Mihelich, “Polders and Politics of Land Reclamation in Southeast China during the Northern Sung” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell Univ., 1979); Peter Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan 1500–1850 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1987); Mei Li 梅莉, Zhang Guoxiong 張國雄, and Yan Changgui 晏昌貴, Lianghu pingyuan kaifa tanyuan 兩湖平原開發探源 (Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1995); Shiba Yoshinobu, “Environment versus Water Control: The Case of the Southern Hangzhou Bay Area from the Mid-Tang Through the Qing,” in Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History, ed. Mark Elvin and Ts'ui-jung Liu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 135–64]
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Nanhui New City in Shanghai
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Haikou Bay, Hainan Province, where the west side of Haidian Island is being extended, and off the coast of Haikou, where new land for a marina is being created.
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The Cotai area of Macau, where many casinos are located.
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Parts of Shekou in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
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Much of the coastline of Mumbai, India. It took over 150 years to join the original Seven Islands of Bombay. These seven islands were lush, green, thickly wooded, and dotted with 22 hills, with the Arabian Sea washing through them at high tide. The original Isle of Bombay was only long and wide from Dongri to Malabar Hill (at its broadest point) and the other six were Colaba, Old Woman's Island, Mahim, Parel, Worli and Mazgaon. (See also Hornby Vellard).
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The shore of Jakarta Bay. Land is usually reclaimed to create new housing areas and real estate properties, for the rapidly expanding city of Jakarta. So far, the largest reclamation project in the city is the creation of Golf Island, north of Pantai Indah Kapuk.
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Giant Sea Wall Jakarta
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Hulhumalé Island, one of the six divisions of Malé City.
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Addu Atoll, the southernmost atoll of the Maldives.
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Forest City, an integrated residential and tourism district in Johor, Malaysia, was controversial due to its reclamation of wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention in a designated Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) Rank 1 area.
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The North Reclamation Area in Cebu City.
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The whole business district of Cebu South Road Properties in Cebu City.
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The shore of Manila Bay, especially along Metro Manila, has attracted major developments such as the Mall of Asia Complex, Entertainment City and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex.
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A part of the Hamad International Airport, around .
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The entire Pearl Island situated in West Bay (Doha).
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The city-state of Singapore, where land is in short supply, is also famous for its efforts on land reclamation.
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The size of Singapore has increased by 25% from 581.5 square kilometres in 1960 to 725.7 in 2019. This is part of the nation's plans to create more homes and common spaces in the land-scarce city-state. Upcoming projects include the Long Island project, involving the reclamation of three tracts of land (expected to span around 800 ha), which is set at a higher level to protect against rising sea levels. It will also enclose a body of water, acting as a reservoir, strengthening the nation's water resilience. Detailed technical studies are currently under way, lasting five years. This project would take a few decades to plan and implement.
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Incheon International Airport
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Colombo International Financial City
Europe
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The southwestern residential area in Brest.
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Certain areas of Denmark.
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Paljassaare, Tallinn is a peninsula consisting of two former islands connected to the mainland during the 20th century
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Port of Tallinn is largely built on land reclaimed over centuries.
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Helsinki (of which the major part of the city center is built on reclaimed land).
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Large parts of the Netherlands.
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Parts of Bryggen, Bergen including the Dreggekaien cruise terminal and other ship services.
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Waterfront Centre, St. Helier
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Majority of left-bank and some right-bank residential areas of Kyiv were built on a reclaimed fens and floodplains of the Dnieper river.
North America
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The Potter's Cay in Nassau, The Bahamas was connected to the island of New Providence.
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The shore of Nassau, The Bahamas especially along East Bay street.
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Much of Bermuda's St David's Island are reclaimed; the island, the site of Bermuda's international airport, was formerly several smaller islands.
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Notre Dame Island in Montreal. In the Saint Lawrence River, 15 million tons of rock excavated from the Montreal Metro underground rail in 1965 to form an artificial island.
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Leslie Street Spit, the downtown waterfront south of Front Street, and sections of the Toronto Islands in Toronto.
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Part of Nuns' Island in Montreal.
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Infilling False Creek, Burrard Inlet and various creekways of Vancouver.
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Tsawwassen ferry terminal causeway in Delta.
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Wreck Beach, Metro Vancouver Electoral Area A
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The Chicago shoreline.
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The Northwestern University Lakefill, part of the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
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Several neighborhoods in Boston are the result of landfill.
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Several islands in Biscayne Bay in the Miami metropolitan area, including the Venetian Islands, are the result of landfill.
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Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn.
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Much of the Hudson Waterfront in Hudson County, New Jersey including MOTBY, Port Jersey, Ellis Island, Liberty State Park, much Downtown Jersey City, and Hoboken.
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Parts of Newark Bay and the New Jersey Meadowlands including Port Newark, Newark Airport, and the Meadowlands Sports Complex
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Parts of New Orleans (which is partially built on land that was once swamp).
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Much of the urbanized area adjacent to San Francisco Bay, including most of San Francisco's waterfront and Financial District, San Francisco International Airport, the Port of Oakland, and large portions of the city of Alameda has been reclaimed from the bay. The entirety of Treasure Island was also reclaimed to cover over the shallow waters north of Yerba Buena Island that presented a navigational hazard.
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Large hills in Seattle were removed and used to create Harbor Island and reclaim land along Elliott Bay. In particular, the neighborhoods of SoDo, Seattle and Interbay are largely built on filled wetlands.
Oceania
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Most of Barangaroo, a commercial and residential suburb in the central business district of Sydney, New South Wales.
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Areas of Darling Harbour, a locality west of the Sydney central business district.
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A large portion of the southern suburb of Sylvania Waters in Sydney.
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Runway 16L/34R and the southern half of runway 16R/34L at Sydney Airport.
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Large portions of Brisbane Airport, including the newest runway, 01L/19R.
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Large portions of Port Botany in metropolitan Sydney.
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The majority of the Port of Brisbane, formerly the Fisherman Islands archipelago.
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Large areas of the Melbourne Docklands.
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Portions of the Swan River foreshore adjoining the Perth central business district in Western Australia, including the entirety of Mounts Bay (pictured above).
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My Suva park, a recreation park for the Greater Suva area.
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Considerable areas of Dunedin, New Zealand, including the "Southern Endowment", stretching from the central city to the southeastern suburbs along the shore of Otago Harbour.
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Prior to the Napier earthquake of 1931, significant reclamation of the Ahuriri Lagoon was undertaken in areas of Napier South and Ahuriri. There were also minor reclamation works undertaken after 1931 on the new low-lying lands brought up by the earthquake.
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Areas around Wellington and Auckland's harbours and airports have also been reclaimed.
South America
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The entire riverfront of Buenos Aires, including the port and an airport.
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Large parts of Rio de Janeiro, most notably several blocks in the new docks area, the entire Flamengo Park and the neighborhood of Urca.
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Parts of Florianópolis.
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Parts of the Historic District of Porto Alegre, including the docks of Port of Porto Alegre and the Beira-Rio Stadium, were built on reclaimed lands of Lake Guaíba between the end of the 19th century and the 1970s.
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Santa Cruz del Islote,
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Parts of Montevideo, Rambla Sur and several projects still going on in Montevideo's Bay.
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Parts of the Vargas State
Agriculture
Agriculture was a driver of land reclamation before industrialisation.
In
South China, farmers reclaimed
by enclosing an area with a stone wall on the
sea shore near a
river mouth or
river delta. The species of rice that are grown on these grounds are more
salt tolerant. Another use of such enclosed land is the creation of
. It is commonly seen on the Pearl River Delta and
Hong Kong. These reclaimed areas also attract species of
bird migration.
A related practice is the drainage of swampy or seasonally submerged to convert them to farmland. While this does not create new land exactly, it allows commercially productive use of land that would otherwise be restricted to wildlife habitat. It is also an important method of mosquito control.
Even in the post-industrial age, there have been land reclamation projects intended for increasing available agricultural land. For example, the village of Ogata in Akita, Japan, was established on land reclaimed from Lake Hachirōgata (Japan's second largest lake at the time) starting in 1957. By 1977, the amount of land reclaimed totalled .
Artificial islands
Artificial islands are an example of land reclamation. Creating an artificial island is an expensive and risky undertaking. It is often considered in places with high population density and a scarcity of flat land. Kansai International Airport (in
Osaka) and Hong Kong International Airport are examples where this process was deemed necessary. The
Palm Islands, The World and hotel
Burj al-Arab off
Dubai in the United Arab Emirates are other examples of artificial islands (although there is yet no real "scarcity of land" in Dubai), as well as the
Flevopolder in the
Netherlands which is the largest artificial island in the world.
Beach restoration
Beach rebuilding is the process of repairing
using materials such as
sand or
mud from inland. This can be used to build up beaches suffering from
beach starvation or erosion from
longshore drift. It stops the movement of the original beach material through longshore drift and retains a natural look to the beach. Although it is not a long-lasting solution, it is cheap compared to other types of coastal defences. An example of this is the city of Mumbai.
Landfill
As
overcrowding intensified during the 20th century, it has become important to develop land re-use strategies for completed landfills. Some of the most common usages are for parks,
and other sports fields. Increasingly, however, office buildings and industrial uses are made on a completed landfill. In these latter uses,
methane capture is customarily carried out to minimize explosive hazard within the building.
An example of a Class A office building constructed over a landfill is the Dakin Building at Sierra Point, Brisbane, California. The underlying fill was deposited from 1965 to 1985, mostly consisting of construction debris from San Francisco and some . Aerial photographs prior to 1965 show this area to be of the San Francisco Bay. A clay cap was constructed over the debris prior to building approval.[Paul B. Awosika and Marc Papineau, Phase One Environmental Site Assessment, 7000 Marina Boulevard, Brisbane, California, prepared for Argentum International by Certified. Engineering & Testing Company, Boston, Massachusetts, July 15, 1993]
A notable example is Sydney Olympic Park, the primary venue for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, which was built atop an industrial wasteland that included landfills.
Another strategy for landfill is the incineration of landfill trash at high temperature via the plasma-arc gasification process, which is currently used at two facilities in Japan, and was proposed to be used at a facility in St. Lucie County, Florida.
Environmental impact
Draining wetlands for ploughing, for example, is a form of habitat destruction. In some parts of the world, new reclamation projects are restricted or no longer allowed, due to environmental protection laws. Reclamation projects have strong negative impacts on coastal populations, although some species can take advantage of the newly created area.
A 2022 global analysis estimated that 39% of losses (approximately ) and 14% of gains (approximately ) of tidal wetlands (
,
Mudflat, and
Salt marsh) between 1999 and 2019 were due to direct human activities, including conversion to aquaculture, agriculture, plantations, coastal developments and other physical structures.
Environmental legislation
The
California created a state commission, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, in 1965 to protect San Francisco Bay and regulate development near its shores. The commission was created in response to growing concern over the shrinking size of the bay.
Hong Kong legislators passed the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, proposed by the Society for Protection of the Harbour, in 1997 in an effort to safeguard the increasingly threatened Victoria Harbour against encroaching land development.
Dangers
Reclaimed land is highly susceptible to soil liquefaction during earthquakes,
which can amplify the amount of damage that occurs to buildings and infrastructure.
Subsidence is another issue, both from
soil compaction on filled land, and also when wetlands are enclosed by
and drained to create
. Drained
marshes will eventually sink below the surrounding water level, increasing the danger from
.
Land amounts added
Asia
|
| | 76.3% of original size of (1931–2007). |
| | About in total and has potential (8% of total area) up to depth in the territorial sea area. |
| |
of land was reclaimed up to 2013. Praya Reclamation Scheme began in the late 1860s and consisted of two stages totaling .
In addition, as the city expanded, new towns in different decades were mostly built on reclaimed land, such as Kwun Tong, Sha Tin-Ma On Shan, Tai Po, Tseung Kwan O, Tuen Mun, and West Kowloon.
|
| | Mumbai – An archipelago of originally seven separate islands were joined by land reclamation over a span of five centuries. This was done to develop Mumbai as a harbour city. |
| | Jakarta – Giant Sea Wall Jakarta is part of a massive coastal development project at Jakarta Bay. |
| | |
| | 170% of the original size or [ gov.mo] |
| | In the 1980s, North Korea commenced a "find new land" program to reclaim 300,000 hectares of land (3,000 km2 or 1,160 mi2) in order to expand the country's supply of arable land. The project was unsuccessful and only reclaimed 20,000 hectares (200 km2 or 70 mi2) by the time it was cancelled after the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. It also contributed to the collapse of the North Korean economy and the subsequent famine in the 1990s. Land reclamation efforts resumed in the 2010s under Kim Jong-un with more success. North Korea constructed artificial islands in the Yellow Sea containing Korean People's Army bases, possibly inspired by Chinese artificial islands in the South China Sea and possibly as bases for long-range ballistic missiles. |
| |
- Additional 626 hectares along the eastern coast of Manila Bay created in the 1990s
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Cebu South Road Properties, Cebu City, Philippines - Artificial island which is 300 hectares was built along the sea between Mainland Cebu and Kawit Island. This was done to address the increasing need of urban and residential development in Cebu City due to its very progressive economy.
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New Manila International Airport, Bulakan, Philippines
|
| |
20 percent of the original size or . , plans for more are to go ahead, |
| | As of 2006, 38 percent or of coastal wetlands reclaimed, including at Saemangeum. Songdo International Business district, the largest private development in history, is a large-scale reclamation project built entirely on tidal mudflats. |
| |
Dubai has a total of four reclaimed islands (the Palm Jumeirah, Jebel Ali, The Burj al Arab Island, and The World Islands), with a fifth under construction (the Palm Deira). There are several human-made islands in Abu Dhabi, such as Yas Island and Al Lulu Island.
|
Europe
|
| |
out of , or one fifth of Monaco comes from land taken from the sea, mainly in the neighborhoods of Fontvieille, [[La Condamine]], and [[Larvotto/Bas MoulinsLarvotto]].
|
| |
About (almost 17%) of the entire country, or about in total, has been reclaimed from the sea, lakes, marshes and swamps. The province of Flevoland has almost completely been reclaimed from the Zuiderzee.
|
Other countries
List of reclaimed land by country and territory
|
| | 13,500+ | Land reclamation in China |
| | 7,000 | Flevoland, de Beemster, Afsluitdijk
Land reclamation in the Netherlands |
| | 1,550 | |
| | 1,000+ | Artificial islands of the United States |
| | 500+ | |
| | 470 | Land reclamation in the United Arab Emirates |
| | 410 | |
| | 135 | Land reclamation in Singapore |
| | 110 | |
| | 67 | Land reclamation in Hong Kong |
| | 35 | |
| | 17 | |
| | 9.26 | Cebu South Road Properties Central Business District and
Land reclamation in Metro Manila |
| | 3.3 | Reclamation of Wellington Harbour |
| | 2.33 | Colombo International Financial City |
| | 1.94 | Cape Town Foreshore |
| | 0.62 | Velana International Airport |
| | 0.41 | Land reclamation in Monaco |
See also
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Artificial island
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Great wall of sand
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Marine regression – the formation of new land by reductions in sea level
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Drainage system (agriculture) – drainage for land reclamation
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Land improvement
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Land recycling
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Hong Kong Society for Protection of the Harbour
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Mine reclamation
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Polder – low-lying land reclaimed from a lake or sea
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Reclamation of Wellington Harbour, New Zealand
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River reclamation
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Water reclamation
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Rainbowing
Notes
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http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-parliament-wants-solution-to-land-reclamation-issue-1.567052
External links
