Paradise Drowning

Just look at the clear blue waters, white sand beaches, and tropical atmosphere in the image above, it all looks so fabulous. Can you imagine if this paradise was submerged in water? If you can’t, then I have some news for you. Recently I traveled to this paradise and stayed in the Radisson Blu Island Resort, which was an amazing experience and something only possible in the great country of Maldives. The Maldives is famous for its heavily scattered islands and its over-the-top island resorts, but due to global warming, the country faces a major problem. It deeply saddens me that in only about 30 more years what I have done this summer, traveling to the Maldives, won’t be possible for anyone ever for the rest of time due to the Maldives being uninhabitable. The problem has gotten so bad that the president of the Maldives has only three months left of fresh groundwater to drinking due to his island’s well being flooded with salt water.

The Maldives is the lowest country in the world, meaning that any significant rise in the sea level could be disastrous for the half a million inhabitants on the islands. They already face immense flooding and erosion, largely part to the dead/dying corals. These undersea plants serve as natural barriers protecting the coastline from flooding. All over the world coral reefs are dying at alarming rates, due to bleaching events which I have talked about in a previous blog post. The Maldivian government is forced to use unorthodox methods to combat this rising water crisis. Personally, I think that what they have been doing is really fascinating. The people of Maldives have started using 3-D printing as a way to combat the coral crisis. The basis of this idea is that a 3-D printed base for a coral to grow on is created. From this base, they install live coral specimens, meaning they are effectively regrowing their reefs back with technology! Many sci-fi movies try to depict what a futuristic world could look like by showing floating cities, cities in space, underground cities, etc. Well, the time has almost come for phase one of this new world, floating cities! The Maldives is currently working on a project to create the world’s first city on water, which always stays on the surface and rises, with the water.

Its hexagonal shape is meant to represent a mix of the human brain and coral. The MFC, or Maldives Floating City, is being built by the group known as the Dutch Docklands. After viewing their video showing the model of the city, which you can view below, some questions have formed in my mind.

I feel that the model lacks exploitable farmland. As you can see from the birds-eye view of the city, it appears that about 75% of the land in the city is being used for homes, with almost no farmland. This means that almost all of the materials this city will need must be imported from other countries, making it a very dependent city. And since the cost of living isn’t necessarily I’m assuming it will have a surplus of any material necessary, otherwise you wouldn’t be paying $250,000 for 1000 square feet. If it lives up to its potential of always staying above the water it will eventually, assuming no other islands are created in time, be one of the only islands inhabitable in the Maldives. Since the price of living in these islands is already more expensive than in America (about 100k-200k per 1000 square feet), many of the current Maldivians will not be able to live in these homes. Although a good idea if carried out in bulk with many other islands, this idea will be only affordable as a getaway vacation for the rich and wealthy of the world if it is the only one of its kind, which I’m sure it won’t be.

https://depositphotos.com/111844128/stock-photo-beautiful-maldives-island.html

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a36231724/maldives-floating-city/

https://abcnews.go.com/International/facing-dire-sea-level-rise-threat-maldives-turns/story?id=80929487#:~:text=At%20the%20current%20rate%20of,the%20Maldives%2C%20told%20the%20U.N.