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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Cities worldwide claw vast amounts of land from the sea

China, the United Arab Emirates and other countries are adding area by converting wetlands and shallow waters into solid land.
An aerial view of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Palm Jumeirah in the United Arab Emirates was built from sand dredged from the sea floor. Credit: Andriy Popov/Alamy

The world’s major coastal cities added roughly 2,530 square kilometres of land — more than 40 times the size of Manhattan — to their coastlines from 2000 to 2020, reveals a survey of satellite imagery1.

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Nature 614, 597 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00406-5

References

  1. Sengupta, D. et al. Earth’s Future 11, e2022EF002927 (2023).

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