Sea Level Rise and Floating Structures along Asian Coastlines: New Adaptation Strategies for Sinking Cities like Jakarta and Others

March 17, 2025, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM HST

Registration: https://ari.nus.edu.sg/events/20250318-asian-coastlines/

ABSTRACT

Many Asian cities, along with others worldwide, are increasingly interconnected by the shared threat of sinking—a stark reminder that climate change is predominantly a crisis driven by water-related challenges. Coupled with more intense storms and rising groundwater levels, urban flooding has become a defining issue of the twenty-first century. The most vulnerable regions include coastal areas in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Netherlands.

This interdisciplinary symposium will explore floating structures—such as floating homes, recreational facilities, and solar PV systems—as a new adaptation strategy for flood-prone urban environments. Rising sea levels, a consequence of climate change, demand locally viable adaptation strategies. Traditional responses include retreating to higher ground, which can exacerbate social inequities without adequate government support; land reclamation, which disrupts biodiversity and can alter water temperatures; constructing seawalls, which can be affected by coastal erosion and groundwater level rise; implementing nature-based protective measures; or flood-proofing individual buildings. An emerging alternative is integrating floating structures into urban environments through advancing (or shifting) parts of urbanization onto aquatic surfaces. These structures, capable of vertical mobility, adapt to fluctuating water levels.

In cities like Jakarta, the excessive extraction of groundwater to meet growing freshwater demand accelerates land subsidence, further compounding the risk of sinking. The creation of large water reservoirs is a potential solution, which then reinforces the relevance of floating structures in this aquatic environment. Growing interest in floating structures from international organizations such as the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, alongside national governments, underscores the timeliness of this symposium. By combining expertise across governance, engineering, urban planning, architecture, historical applications of floating structures, and biodiversity, the symposium will deliver a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities and challenges associated with an advance onto aquatic surfaces in the shared adaptation context of sinking Asian cities like Jakarta and others.