Seascape the Landscape in Singapore: Repurposing Land in a Land Scarce Nation

Abstract – Planet Earth is unique in the solar system. It has an abundance of live-sustaining air and water. However, with each passing day in the past 200 years, we seem more determine to destroy what nature has endowed us for generations. Here in Singapore wealth has come at a price. From a city of just over a million people when it became independent in 1965, the nation projects a population of 6.7 million by 2030. From a country with a land area of 567 square kilometers then it has ballooned to 720 square kilometres now and would need according to official figures, yet another 56 sq.km by 2030. The millions of tons Singapore imports have wiped out large tracts of the marine eco-system here as well as in countries where the sand is mined. The speaker calls for a quantum shift in urban planning to envision the planning space not just landwards of the shoreline but seawards as well. It is technologically feasible to shift space intensive assets beyond land into the waters around us. There is as much sea as land over which Singapore sovereignty prevails. While we have made excellent use of our land, the same cannot be said of our sea. The GDP contribution from port and marine activities is paltry based on the area that is needed to support them as well as the area that has become “un-useable” because of the traffic they generate. Technology exist to change all this. Changing our seascape, we will have room to change our landscape. Many economic activities may be moved from land to floating islands. They include the obvious such as warehouses, power plants, desalination plants, incinerators, farms, recreation parks, to the less obvious like ports, shipyards, water reservoirs, military bases for our army, navy and air force. As for resources to make this happen, we have one of the best in the world. The world has tapped it for the exploitation of oil and gas field. We need to tap it to resolve the land pressure problem.