• Corpus ID: 40785579

Reducing global land scarcity with floating urban development and food production

@inproceedings{Roeffen2013ReducingGL,
  title={Reducing global land scarcity with floating urban development and food production},
  author={B. Roeffen and B. Dal Bo Zanon and K. M. Czapiewska and Rutger de Graaf},
  year={2013}
}

• B. Roeffen, B. Zanon, +1 author R. Graaf
• Published 2013
• Economics

Rapid urbanization, rising food demand, land degradation and increasing biofuel demand will put pressure on available land. These global trends are evaluated by a survey of available documented literature to estimate global land shortage in 2050. An overview is presented of existing options to deal with the expected shortage of land including increasing agricultural production, urban densification and city expansion into floodplains. The article evaluates if floating urban expansion and floating food production can contribute to a solution for global land shortage. The results include an evaluation of the space use efficiency of floating city expansions and food production. The conclusion of the article is that floating developments can be a promising solution to global land scarcity, especially if a symbiosis is created between cities on land and floating developments on water. This symbiosis is achieved using waste nutrients and CO2 for the production of food and biofuel in floating cities, with the application of floating algae systems. This approach closes nutrient and waste cycles and can provide ecological services to coastal cities.