Maldives: Climate change and small but inhabited islands are also shrinking rapidly due to rising sea levels. This problem has long been a headache for experts, but experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with an effective technology solution.
Although this system takes some time, it prevents the soil from being washed away by the sea waves and helps it to increase the area of the island again. Experimentally, in just four months, a small island in the Maldives has accumulated a total of 10,600 cubic feet of soil, extending the entire island’s outer shores by a foot and a half.
According to MIT scientist Skyler Tibbets, soil structures can be self-regulated, a sustainable technology that can prevent small islands from disappearing forever. Scientists have described the process as similar to forest management.
In this technology, balloon-like devices are spread on the sea floor and incoming waves keep pouring dust into it. And then the soil is brought to the edges. All this happens under a natural process and thus the soil keeps accumulating. The project was launched several months ago on an island in the Maldives and has achieved extraordinary success in just four months, as can be seen in the picture below.
According to a survey, 40% of the world’s population lives near the coast and the waves are rapidly engulfing the coast. Thus, this situation has turned into a crisis. Although heavy machinery is used to bring sea sand back to shore, it is an expensive, time consuming and difficult method.
The system built by MIT naturally collects sand on land and in a few days the sand becomes part of the island. According to Skyler, the technology can also be changed depending on the changing direction of the waves. So far this system has been tested four times.
Experts are now considering using it on a large scale.