Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from ocean, riverbeds, or, lake. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.

In a number of other jurisdictions, including parts of the United States,^[1] the term "reclamation" can refer to returning disturbed lands to an improved state. For example, in Alberta, Canada, Reclamation is defined by the provincial government as "The process of reconverting disturbed land to its former or other productive uses."^[2] In Oceania it is frequently referred to as land rehabilitation.

Habitation[link]

The entire East Coast Park in Singapore was built on reclaimed land with a man-made beach.

The Flevopolder in the Netherlands, reclaimed from the IJsselmeer, is the largest artificial island in the world.

Land Reclamation in the Beirut Central District

The whole district of Fontvieille, Monaco was reclaimed from the sea

The creation of new land was for the need of human activities.

Notable examples in the West include:

• Large parts of the Netherlands
• Parts of Dublin, Ireland
• Parts of Saint Petersburg, Russia, such as the Marine Facade
• Parts of New Orleans (which is partially built on land that was once swamp)
• Much of the urbanized area adjacent to San Francisco Bay, including most of San Francisco's waterfront and Financial District, the Port of Oakland, and large portions of the city of Alameda has been reclaimed from the bay.
• Mexico City (which is situated at the former site of Lake Texcoco)
• Helsinki (of which the major part of the city center is built on reclaimed land)
• The Cape Town foreshore
• The Chicago shoreline
• The Hassan II Mosque in Morocco is built on reclaimed land.
• Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts
• Battery Park City, Manhattan
• Liberty State Park, Jersey City
• The port of Zeebrugge in Belgium
• The southwestern residential area in Brest, Belarus
• The Toronto Islands, Leslie Street Spit, and the waterfront in Toronto
• Part of Nuns' Island and all of Île Notre-Dame in Montreal
• Most of Fontvieille, Monaco
• Parts surrounding Port Hercules in La Condamine, Monaco
• The Fens in Eastern England.

In the East:

• 25% of Hong Kong Island
• Haikou Bay, Hainan Province, China, where the west side of Haidian Island is being extended, and off the coast of Haikou City, where new land for a marina is being created
• Macau
• Japan
• Beirut Central District, Lebanon
• The city of Mumbai, India
• The southern Chinese cities of Shenzhen
• The shore of Manila Bay in the Philippines, especially along Metro Manila, has attracted major developments such as the Mall of Asia Complex and the Cultural Centre of the Philippines Complex.
• The city-state of Singapore, where land is in short supply, are also famous for their efforts on land reclamation.

One of the earliest and famous project was the Praya Reclamation Scheme, which added 50 to 60 acres (20.2 to 24.3 ha) of land in 1890 during the second phase of construction. It was one of the most ambitious projects ever taken during the Colonial Hong Kong era.^[3] Some 20% of land in the Tokyo Bay area has been reclaimed.^[4] Le Portier, Monaco and Gibraltar are also expanding due to land reclamation. The city of Rio de Janeiro was largely built on reclaimed land, as was Wellington, New Zealand.

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, as well as the Flevopolder in the Netherlands which is the largest artificial island in the world.

Agriculture[link]

Agriculture was a drive for land reclamation before industrialisation. In South China, farmers reclaimed paddy fields by enclosing an area with a stone wall on the sea shore near river mouth or river delta. The species of rice that grow on these grounds are more salt tolerant. Another use of such enclosed land is creation of fish ponds. It is commonly seen on the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong. These reclamation also attracts species of migrating birds.

A related practice is the draining of swampy or seasonally submerged wetlands 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.

Beach restoration[link]

Beach rebuilding is the process of repairing beaches 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.

Landfill[link]

As human overcrowding of developed areas 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, golf courses 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 municipal wastes. Aerial photographs prior to 1965 show this area to be tidelands of the San Francisco Bay. A clay cap was constructed over the debris prior to building approval.^[5]

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 will be used at a planned facility in St. Lucie County, Florida.^[6]

Environmental impact[link]

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.

Environmental legislation[link]

Land reclamation in Hong Kong: Grey (built), red (proposed or under development). Most of the urban area of Hong Kong is on the reclaimed land.

The State of 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 in 1996 in an effort to safeguard the increasingly threatened Victoria Harbour against encroaching land development.^[7]

Dangers[link]

Reclaimed land is highly susceptible to soil liquefaction during earthquakes,^[8] 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 levees and drained to create Polders. Drained marshes will eventually sink below the surrounding water level, increasing the danger from flooding.

Land amounts added[link]

• Netherlands - about 1/5 of the entire country reclaimed from the sea, lakes, marshes and swamps. About 7,000 km² in total.
• South Korea - As of 2006, 38 percent or 1,550 km² of coastal wetlands reclaimed, including 400  km² at Saemangeum.
• Singapore - 20% of the original size or 135 km². As of 2003, plans for 99 km² more are to go ahead,^[9] despite the fact that disputes persist with Malaysia over Singapore's extensive land reclamation works.^[10]
• Hong Kong - (Main article: Land reclamation in Hong Kong)

Praya Reclamation Scheme began in the late 1860s and consisted of two stages totaling 50 to 60+ acres.^[3] Hong Kong Disneyland, Hong Kong International Airport, and its predecessor, Kai Tak Airport, were all built on reclaimed land. In addition, much reclamation has taken place in prime locations on the waterfront on both sides of Victoria Harbour. This has raised environmental issues of the protection of the harbour which was once the source of prosperity of Hong Kong, traffic congestion in the Central district,^[11] as well as the collusion of the Hong Kong Government with the real estate developers in the territory.^[12][13]

In addition, as the city expands, new towns in different decades were mostly built on reclaimed land, such as Tuen Mun, Tai Po, Shatin-Ma On Shan, West Kowloon, Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O.

• Macau - 170% of the original size or 17 km^2[14]
• Mumbai - 7 islands which were originally separate were joined together by land reclamation which was done to make a harbour
• Monaco - 0.41 km² out of 2.05 km², or 1/5 of Monaco comes from land taken from the sea. Mainly in the neighborhoods of Fontvieille, La Condamine and Larvotto/Bas Moulins.
• Tokyo Bay, Japan - 249 km².^[15]
• Kobe, Japan - 23 km² (1995).
• Bahrain - 76.3% of original size of 410 km²(1931–2007).
• New Zealand - significant areas of land totalling several hundred hectares have been reclaimed along the harbourfront of Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin. In Dunedin - which in its early days was nicknamed "Mudedin" - around 2.5 km², including much of the inner city and suburbs of Dunedin North, South Dunedin and Andersons Bay is reclaimed from the Otago Harbour, and a similar area in the suburbs of St Clair and St Kilda is reclaimed swampland.

See also[link]

• Artificial island
• Drainage system (agriculture) - drainage for land reclamation
• Land improvement
• Mine reclamation
• Polder - low lying land reclaimed from a lake or sea
• Reclamation of Wellington New Zealand
• River reclamation
• Hong Kong Society for Protection of the Harbour
• Water reclamation

External links[link]

• The Cape Town Foreshore Plan 1947
• The Canadian Land Reclamation Association

Notes[link]