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Waterworld - Living with Climate Change

October 13, 2020

Sea levels are rising faster and faster, threatening 700 million people who live on the world’s coasts. Will water become the habitat of the future?

DW Dokus KW28
Image: ORF

Visionary projects for a life with the tides are forging ahead worldwide.

Experts forecast that by 2100, sea levels will be two meters higher than they are today. This could force 40 percent of the world’s population out of their homes, for example, in Mumbai, Tokyo, Guangzhou or Bangladesh. The US won’t be spared either. Miami, New Orleans and New York would also have to be evacuated. Entire city districts would be under water. Climate change would drastically alter our metropolitan areas.

Image: Floating City Project/The Seasteading Institute /DeltaSync

That's why ideas that originated in science fiction have now become reality. Floating and underwater buildings could become places of refuge. What sounds like a utopia is soon to become reality. The first pioneers are already living in floating neighborhoods. Could the South Pacific paradise of Tahiti also be saved in this way?

Image: Reuters/L. Karagiannopoulos

This is still all tantalizing luxury. Visionary hotel operators offer rooms with an underwater view. Or dinner during which fish and marine life are a feature in floating restaurants. Many of these futuristic plans involve water. Will we be farming on the sea? Will the "SeaOrbiter” floating research station designed by Parisian architect Jacques Rougerie get underway soon? Or will we walk through seaports on floating boulevards?


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