Wednesday June 06, 2007

Build dykes to protect against rising sea levels: experts

channelnewsasia.com (backblog) :

Experts say Singapore can build a system to protect itself from rising sea levels due to global warming - they recommend dykes, or a sea defence system. As an island, Singapore can be affected by rising sea levels as a result of melting ice caps because of global warming. So the country is looking into the possibility of building dykes to tackle this problem, as disclosed by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at a recent dialogue. Singapore is tapping the experience of the Dutch, who have been using dykes for many years. Dykes are used to protect cities in the Netherlands, half of which were built below sea level. Dykes have also been used in countries such as the US and Japan.

But there are different conditions for different countries. "It depends, a little bit on the elevation of the land in Singapore. I think it makes sense to do a good study on this, to verify where land is prone to future inundation. Of course in Singapore you have a little handicap of finding fill materials," says Tjitte A Nauta, Project Manager, Marine & Coastal Management, Delft Hydraulics. Delft Hydraulics says that in the Netherlands, dykes are also used to create land from marshland and other water bodies, by constructing the structures to block off the areas and pumping them dry - hence creating what is called a polder. This model, it is believed, can also be applied to Singapore to create more land.

Nauta explains how it works, "Basically, it starts by building a dyke in the water system and then pumping it dry - the land within the dyke is pumped dry so that a land is created on the existing bed of the sea or the lake or whatever ... in the Netherlands we have created a substantial increase of our land ... by just building large polder scheme ... and they are in a sense a cheaper alternative to land reclamation because you don't need all the fill materials." But having to pump the water out also means more energy required, which may result in higher costs.

See also :

1. Melting Greenland ice could raise ocean 7 meters
2. Water found under Antarctic ice to raise sea level forecasts
3. Threat of 16 feet rise in sea level
4. 1 in 10 at risk from rising seas, storms: study
5. Global warming scenarios (San Francisco, Indonesia, Bangladesh)

(2007-06-06 12:35:48 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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