Applied Geography 90 (2018) 229–238 Contents lists availab.docx

Applied Geography 90 (2018) 229–238
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Applied Geography
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apgeog
TBuilding beyond land: An overview of coastal land
reclamation in 16 global
megacities
Dhritiraj Senguptaa, Ruishan Chena,∗ , Michael E. Meadowsb,a
a Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science, Ministry
of Education, and School of Geographical Sciences, East China
Normal University, Shanghai, 500,
Dongchuan Road, 200241, China
b Department of Environmental and Geographical Science,
University of Cape Town, South Africa
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Coastal megacities
Land reclamation
Artificial land
Geo-engineering coastlines
A B S T R A C T
The increase in global population has been accompanied by

rising consumption of natural resources such as
clean air, water and land. Demand for land has increased
significantly over the past 30 years or so, both inland
and at the coast. In coastal regions, reclaiming land from the sea
has often been the preferred solution towards
meeting the need for more land for urban development. Seaward
land reclamation entails the formation of
artificial land surfaces which are constructed in such a way as
to extend outwards over the sea using advanced
geo-engineering techniques. The process is driven by numerous
underlying factors and has manifold impacts.
Although this pattern of urban development is not new, the
nature, scale and magnitude of land extension has
changed dramatically for a range of underlying reasons
involving both ‘natural’ geophysical, and anthropogenic
factors. The overall aim of this paper is to evaluate the
changing spatial extent of seaward land expansion in 16
selected coastal megacities. Remote sensing data, spanning the
time period mid-1980's to present, were obtained
and used to determine the extent of spatial change due to new
land construction in each of the cities. Landsat TM
satellite imagery was used to calculate the percentage increase
and area reclaimed since the mid-1980s. In
addition, a systematic classification is proposed, based on the
different geomorphic patterns that have been
observed to characterize the process. Among 16 cities analyzed
in this study, major land reclamation projects
have been especially marked in China, most prominently in
Shanghai, which has expanded its coastal area by
more than 580 km2 in the recent past.
1. Introduction
Widespread, rapid urbanization is arguably the most significant
geographical manifestation of global population growth, as
reflected in

the rising number of megacities. Mounting population numbers
and
increasing levels of associated urban expansion, especially in
coastal
cities, have placed extreme pressure on land through
construction and
development (Li et al., 2016; Tan, Li, Xie, & Lu, 2005). This
has resulted
in major geo-engineering projects that have reclaimed or
extended land
by altering the surface morphology in many cities, in particular
along
and beyond the coastline. Key examples include the edifice of
the Palm
resorts of Dubai, construction of the new Hong Kong airport,
artificial
islands in the South China Sea and the development of “Baia de
Luanda” in the capital city of Angola. Other examples include
Flevo-
land, a province in the center of the Netherlands, home to
400,000
inhabitants, which was created by draining lakes, and the
construction
of a contiguous Mumbai from a group of seven islands which
has
evolved into the second most populous coastal megacity in the
world
more than 21 million inhabitants (UN, 2014). There are diverse
geos-
patial consequences of such development that demand our
attention.
Artificial structures may significantly alter the earth's surface,
thereby
strongly affecting geomorphic processes such as soil erosion,

land sub-
sidence, hydrology and sediment dynamics (Xue Hong et al.,
2016). The
Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) developed by the
Food and
Agriculture Organization (Di Gregorio, 2000) classifies and
describes
“artificial surface and associated areas” under “urban type” as
non-ve-
getated dominated areas that have an artificial surface as a
result of
human activities such as construction (cities, towns,
transportation, etc.),
extraction (open mines and quarries) or waste disposal. (2.3.4.1
LCCS
User Manual, FAO 2000). However, building infrastructure on
existing
natural surfaces is very different to constructing entirely new
land in the
sea, as this may require application of advanced geo-
engineering tech-
nologies facilitating a completely artificial mode of sediment
transport.
This is the concept of ‘artificial land’ used in this study.
Construction of such artificial land is driven fundamentally by
an-
thropogenic processes operating at several levels. At the global
level
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Sengupta),
[email protected] (R. Chen), [email protected] (M.E. Meadows).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2017.12.015
Received 26 May 2017; Received in revised form 15 December

2017; Accepted 15 December 2017
0143-6228/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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D. Sengupta et al. Applied Geography 90 (2018) 229–238
international geo-politics and economic interconnectedness
drives
many processes. Regionally, rapid economic development, and
re-
sultant urbanization have initiated land reclamation projects
(Tian, Wu,
Yang, & Zhou, 2016), whereas improvement in transport
infrastructure
for airports and harbours has contributed the same at a local
level.
Increased population and associated urbanization therefore are
im-
portant factors in global environmental processes at all three
spatial
scales (Findlay & Hoy, 2000). Extending land along and beyond
the
shorelines of - for example Dubai (Bagaeen, 2007), Bahrain
(Burt, Al-
Khalifa, Khalaf, AlShuwaikh, & Abdulwahab, 2013), Hong

Kong (Shen,
Hao, Tam, & Yao, 2007) - has, on one hand, boosted the real
estate
industry, while on the other raised several questions regarding
its en-
vironmental impact and sustainability(Grydehøj, 2015).
The dynamics and interconnected nature of coastal
geomorphology,
with both natural and anthropogenic elements means that the
coast is
highly susceptible to external disturbance. The coastal zone,
covering
ten percent of the earth's land surface, is estimated to contain
over half
of the world's population (Seto, Fragkias, Güneralp, Reilly, &
Pidgeon,
2011) and, indeed, most global megacities are coastally located
and
vulnerable to change. In the lowest lying situations, sea level
rise
(Brown et al., 2013) and the resultant coastal inundation is
widely re-
ported potential hazard for coastal communities (Balica, Wright,
& van
der Meulen, 2012; Nicholls, Wong, Burkett, Woodroffe, & Hay,
2008).
There has been rather less research, however, on the
increasingly
common pattern of building beyond the land as a feature of
urban
development in coastal cities.
1.1. Urban expansion at the coast
Rapid and sustained urbanization globally has resulted in both

vertical and horizontal expansion of cities and exerted
considerable
pressure on environmental and socio-economic systems (Shukla
&Panikh 1992). The global urban footprint has ballooned to
accom-
modate the burgeoning population and its demands. This is
particularly
prevalent in Asian cities, including Shanghai (Zhang, Ban, Liu,
& Hu,
2011), Hong Kong (Loo & Chow, 2008), Manila (Murakami,
Medrial
Zain, Takeuchi, Tsunekawa, & Yokota, 2005), Jakarta (Jones,
2002)
and Mumbai (Moghadam & Helbich, 2015), where expansion
has taken
place at an unprecedented pace. In the present day,
approximately
three billion people now reside in urban areas within 200 km of
the
coastline and, by 2025, this figure is likely to double (Creel,
2003;
UNEP, 2014) This pattern of urban settlement has led to
economic
benefits in coastal regions which include upgraded
transportation links,
economic returns from tourism development, and enhanced
industry
and trade, while at the same time it has also had negative
consequences.
The effects of population pressure and improved technological
ability to harness natural resources have combined to trigger
significant
environmental imbalance. Given the challenge of maintaining
equili-
brium between current economic (and social) development, and

en-
vironmental sustainability, analyzing the future demand for
urban land
in terms of actual physical space becomes highly significant. In
China
for instance, the government has responded to urban population
in-
crease by turning to seaward - as opposed to landward -
expansion as
the major solution to the problem of growing demand for land
(Yue,
Zhao, Yu, Xu, & Ou, 2016). As megacities continue to emerge
along the
coastline, it becomes more and more important to compare
landward
and seaward expansion patterns. Coastal megacities are
emerging as
dominant drivers of environmental change due to their sensitive
loca-
tion and the magnitude of their influence on terrestrial, coastal
and
marine environments. (Glasow et al., 2013).
The present paper articulates the widespread nature of seaward
land
extension from the coast. Although coastal land reclamation has
pre-
viously been studied (de Mulder et al., 1994; Riding, 2017), the
scale and
pace of construction have intensified for particular regions
(Tian et al.,
2016; Chee et al., 1994). While such regional perspectives are
important,
it is imperative to assess the globally widespread nature of land
reclamation. Such an assessment may ultimately provide a

platform for a
systematic coastal land reclamation monitoring system which
can track
such coastal constructions. Moreover, the geomorphological
classifica-
tion of land extension pattern is only possible through a global
assess-
ment. Further to this, understanding (at a global level) how
anthro-
pogenic activities, especially land reclamation, alter coastal
geomorphology may provide a perspective on the degree to
which hu-
mans have influenced ocean-human-land interactions in general.
2. Aim and objectives
The aim of this study is to assess the extent of anthropogenic
seaward
coastal land expansion globally, using examples from 16 coastal
mega-
cities over the period from approximately 1985 to 2017 and, in
so doing,
highlight the widespread nature of this phenomenon and its
potential
environmental impact. The objectives of this paper are as
follows:-
� To produce 30m resolution maps of the coastline of 16 of the
world's
largest megacities from the mid-1980s and compare these to the
situation in 2017
� To calculate the absolute and percentage area extended in
each of
the selected coastal megacities over the period under
consideration.

� To develop a classification of the types of geomorphic
patterns
produced by geo-engineering of the additional coastal land.
� To briefly consider the possible driving forces and
environmental
impacts of land extension
3. Study areas, data and method
In order to asses coastal land reclamation, population figures
were
taken as the primary element to select cities for this study.
Megacities,
i.e. those with population greater than 10 million were selected,
as per
The World's Cities in 2016” (UN 2014). According to this
report, there
are 31 megacities globally, of which 16 are situated at the coast
(Small
and Nicholls, 2003); ten of these are located in Asia, of which
three are
in China and two each in Japan and India, see Table 1 & Fig. 1.
Re-
motely sensed satellite imagery of the earth's surface is widely
used in
geospatial research due to its coverage, quality and
accessibility. For
this study, satellite data from the Earth Resource Observation
System,
in particular from Landsat were employed. Images from two
time per-
iods were obtained and analyzed to illustrate coastal seaward
con-
struction. Landsat Thematic Mapper 5 has a database from 1984

on-
wards, depending on the city in question, while Landsat 8
covers the
most recent period (January 2017). For each of the selected
cities, the
absolute and percentage area increases were calculated, firstly,
by de-
limiting the administrative boundary according to a range of
different
sources (Table 1) and overlaying the polygon indicating the
current
boundary on Landsat TM 5 imagery. Secondly, Band 4 (Landsat
TM 5)
and band 6 (Landsat 8) were utilized for digitization of the
coastline
due to its capability on distinguishing between built-up land and
water.
The difference in the area between the two images was then
calculated
both in terms of area and percentage values. The satellite
imagery was
then examined to develop a classification of types of spatial
pattern
created as a result of the seaward land extension.
4. Results1
4.1. Mapping “building beyond land”
Analysis of the satellite imagery facilitated visualization and
cal-
culation of the spatial distribution of new land constructed in
each of
the cities (Fig. 2a to 2p).
1 New York City is not included due to errors in calculating

appropriate coastal area
because of changes in the city's administrative boundaries.
230
Table 1
Coastal megacities analyzed in the study, including source of
administrative boundary
and the most recent population estimates (UN, 2014)}.
Coastal megacity Landsat TM Population in (Source)
5Month/Year 2016 (thousand) Administrative
Boundary
Tokyo, Japan May 1987 38 140 OSM
Shanghai, China May 1987 24 484 Google Earth
Mumbai, India October 1988 21 357 Diva GIS
Osaka, Japan May 1989 20 337 OSM
Karachi, Pakistan October 1989 17 121 OSM
Buenos Aires, March 1986 15 334 Google Earth
Argentina
Istanbul, Turkey June 1884 14 365 Diva GIS
Lagos, Nigeria December 13 661 OSM
1984
Manila, Philippines April 1993 13 131 OSM
Rio de Janeiro, August 1985 12 981 OSM
Brazil
Los Angeles-Long April 1987 12 317 OSM

Beach-Santa
Ana, USA
Tianjin, China September 11 558 Google Earth
1986
Shenzhen, China October 1988 10 828 OSM
Jakarta, Indonesia May 1989 10 484 Google Earth
Chennai, India August 1991 10 163 OSM
Lima, Peru May 1989 10 072 OSM
4.2. Area reclaimed
According to the data (Table 2), between the mid-1980s and
2017,
there was a total addition of 1249.78 km2 of land reclaimed in
the 16
megacities under scrutiny (see Table 3). Shanghai (Fig. 2a) has
ex-
panded by adding 587 km2 of land to its coastline since 1987,
re-
presenting a reclaimed land percentage increase of 6.46 percent
over
the mid-1980s land area. Shanghai is followed by the other two
coastal
megacities in China i.e. Tianjin (Fig. 2b) and Shenzhen (Fig.
2c), which
have reclaimed 86.38 km2 and 488.9 km2 respectively. Coastal
land
extension employing geo-engineering projects appear to be
especially
prominent in East Asian cities (Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen,
Tokyo and
Osaka). More than one million km2 of artificial lands have been

created
in the region since the mid-1980s.
Artificial shoreline construction has been very rapid in coastal
cities
in developing nations; examples include Istanbul, Turkey (Fig.
2(p)),
Jakarta, Indonesia (Fig. 2d), Karachi, Pakistan (Fig. 2i), Manila,
Phi-
lippines (Fig. 2g), Chennai, India (Fig. 2f) and Mumbai, India
(Fig. 2m).
The ongoing land development project at Jakarta has already
reclaimed
18.93 km2 of land out of planned total 50.87 km2 (Jeffreys &
Kuncinas,
2014). The ports of Karachi, Istanbul and Chennai have
expanded
seaward mainly through the creation of artificial land (Fig. 2i,
p, and
2f). As a result, 8.76 km2, 9.23 km2 and 6.59 km2 respectively,
have
been reclaimed through to March 2017 (Table 2). Manila, which
has
already increased its land area by 4.66 km2, plans to add a
further
4.27 km2 of land for the central part of Manila Bay
(news.mb.com.ph/
2017/02/07/erap-approves-manila-bay-reclamation-project/).
There
are notable differences in reclamation rates between cities. For
in-
stance, Shanghai (China), with a population now exceeding 24
million
has added 587 km2of land since 1987, whereas Mumbai (India)
has
reclaimed less than 1 km2 over the same period, despite

increasing its
population by more than 3 million during that time.
More than 16 km2 have been reclaimed in the remaining five
coastal
megacities, viz. Lagos, Nigeria (Fig. 2l), Los Angeles-Long
Beach-Santa
Ana, USA (Fig. 2.n), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Fig. 2k), Lima,
Peru (Fig. 2)
and Buenos Aires, Argentina (Fig. 2j). Lagos, with its highly
ambitious
project to accommodate the headquarters of the region's major
financial
institutions {www.ekoatlantic.com/} had reclaimed 6.66 km2 as
of
January 2017 (Table 2). Buenos Aires has reclaimed 1.33 km2
of land
along its shoreline, including the international airport runway
exten-
sion. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana and Rio de Janeiro
have ex-
panded in order to enhance their port capacity by reclaiming
4.12 km2
(since 1987) and 2.6 km2 (since 1985)respectively.
4.3. Spatial classification of geo-engineered artificial land
Interactions between the various natural and anthropogenic
drivers
at different levels ultimately lead to alteration on the earth's
surface.
The relationship between waves, currents, storms, changing sea
levels
Fig. 1. Map of coastal megacities analyzed in this study.

231
http://www.ekoatlantic.com/
Fig. 2. (a) Shanghai; (b) Tianjin; (c) Shenzhen; (d) Jakarta.(e)
Osaka; (f) Chennai; (g) Manila; (h) Tokyo. (i) Karachi; (j)
Buenos Aires; (k) Rio de Janeiro; (l) Lagos.(m) Mumbai; (n)
Los
Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana; (o) Lima; (p) Istanbul.
232
Fig. 2. (continued)
233
Table 2
Area reclaimed by 16 megacities (Area in square kilometers;
Increase in percent).
Coastal megacity Area in Mid Area in Increase in Area
1980s 2017 Area Reclaimed
Shanghai 6432 6876 6.46 587

Shenzhen 1880 1962 4.18 86.38
Tianjin 11553 12026 3.93 488.91
Jakarta 627 641 2.18 18.23
Osaka 227 232 2.16 7.12
Chennai 482 489 1.43 6.59
Manila 562 569 1.23 4.66
Tokyo 1522 1538 1.04 15.17
Karachi 3824 3851 0.70 8.76
Buenos Aires 206 207 0.48 1.33
Rio de Janeiro 1205 1209 0.33 2.66
Istanbul 5351 5360 0.16 9.22
Lagos 3925 3938 0.33 6.66
Mumbai 703 704 0.14 0.68
Los Angeles-Long 2233 2236 0.13 4.12
Beach-Santa
Ana, USA
Lima 2854 2856 0.07 1.68
Total 43,586 44,694 24.96 1249.78
Table 3
Classification of 16 megacities based on geo-engineering
construction pattern.
Types of Model Coastal megacities
Expanded Land Construction a) Shanghai, China
b) Tianjin, China
c) Shenzhen, China
d) Chennai, India
e) Mumbai, India
f) Buenos Aires, Argentina
g) Lima, Peru
h) Karachi, Pakistan
i) Rio de Jeniero, Brazil

j) Long Beach-Santa Ana, USA
k) Lagos, Nigeria
l) Istanbul, Turkey
Off-shore construction a) Jakarta, Indonesia
b) Osaka, Japan
c) Tokyo, Japan
Merged construction a) Manila, Philippines
b) Mumbai, India*
and barrier island response is complex and rendered more so
when
people manipulate coastal processes (Smith et al., 2015). The
physical
environment therefore influences the precise spatial pattern of
artificial
land construction, suggesting that the development of a
typology could
prove to be a useful means of understanding the process.
Remote sen-
sing satellite images enable detection and monitoring of this
manip-
ulation and provide a platform to observe and classify particular
pat-
terns of construction. The types of construction along the
coastline of
the 16 selected megacities are arranged into three distinctive
geo-
morphic models on the basis of their physical appearance. The
cate-
gories are identified as follows: (1) expanded land construction,
which
involves extension of artificial land from the existing land
surface; (2)
offshore construction whereby new land is created leaving open

water
between the coastline and the artificial land; (3) merged
construction,
in which individual separated landmasses are fused together by
landfill
(see Fig. 3). The selected coastal megacities can be classified
on the
basis of these three distinctive types of construction. Mumbai
can also
be classified under merged construction because of its history of
land
reclamation whereby colonial authorities merged seven island to
build
today's Bombay (Mumbai) (Pacione, 2006), although this was of
course
not a recent development by comparison with most of the other
coastal
megacities.
5. Discussion
5.1. Understanding driving forces
It is pertinent to consider why this form of urban development
at the
coast has been so widespread and so rapid. Cities act as a
catalyst for
rapid socio-economic development. In this context, coastal
cities have
experienced accelerated spatial and economic growth due to
several
factors. Topographically, coastal regions usually provide
abundant flat
surfaces which offer ease of accessibility compared to more
hilly or
mountainous terrain.

The coast lies at the land-sea intersection and acts as a crucial
re-
source base supporting various development activities. Due to
the
availability of appropriate technological interventions, human
interac-
tion at the coast has therefore intensified in the form of building
har-
bors, airports and real estate development. This has led coastal
mega-
cities to emerge as prominent examples of how a particular
combination of physical environmental attributes facilitates
economic
growth. In addition, there are several factors, such as population
growth, economic development, institutional action and cultural
in-
tervention which should be considered as potential drivers of
seaward
land reclamation.
Population growth drives alterations in land-use and land-cover
patterns (Lambin et al., 2001). This poses serious challenges to
the
management and planning of urban zones, especially in the face
of
global environmental change (Lambin, Geist, & Rindfuss,
2006). In
1990, 43 per cent (2.3 billion) of the world's population resided
in
urban areas; by 2015 this proportion had risen to 54 per cent (4
billion)
(UN, 2014). These statistics suggest that the global urban
population
increased by almost 80 million people annually from 2010 to
2015 (UN,

2014) and is projected to continue to rise in the future. As a
result, the
proportion of people living in cities globally is set to reach 66
per cent
by 2050 (UN, 2014; UN-Habitat, 2016). A substantial
proportion of this
growth has been (and will continue to be) in the low-elevation
coastal
zone (LECZ), commonly defined as “the contiguous and
hydrologically
connected zone of land along the coast and below 10 m of
elevation”
(Mcgranahan, Balk, & Anderson, 2007) which is home to a total
po-
pulation of 734 million comprising 243 cities (UN, 2014).
Globally, the urbanized coast is a focus of economic and real
estate
development coupled with population growth (Small and
Nicholls,
2003). In this context, artificial land expansion is increasingly a
feature
of urbanization at the coast and therefore its underlying forces
need to
be considered (Fig. 4). Anthropogenic drivers are dominant, but
are
also affected by natural processes such as soil-sediment
dynamics and
sea level rise that can influence the urban planning process. For
ex-
ample, Eko Atlantic, a massive land reclamation project in
Lagos, Ni-
geria, was initiated in response to the need to establish
additional land
due to coastal retreat {http://www.ekoatlantic.com/about-us}. In
Ja-

karta, the anticipation of sea level rise and the consequent
threat of
coastal flooding led the authorities to develop a plan to build 17
arti-
ficialislands{http://www.indonesiainvestments.com/news/
newscolumns/construction-of-jakarta–island-reclamation-
project-can-
resume/item7180}.
Economic drivers play a significant role in initiating seaward
urban
expansion due to construction of artificial coastal land. For
example,
Tian et al. (2016) show that GDP per capita in China is
positively
correlated with coastal land reclamation; between 1985 and
2010,
754,697 ha.of land was reclaimed nationally and that there was
a six-
fold increase in GDP over the period. In addition, Zhou,
Hubacek, and
Roberts (2015) identify strong correlations between economic
growth
and urban expansion in South Asian megacities. The expansion
of
Mumbai for example, is directly related to its economic growth
(Shafizadeh-Moghadam & Helbich, 2015), although in this case
colonial
policies were initially responsible for fashioning the land
reclamation
project that ultimately created a megacity (Pacione, 2006).
In a globalized world, trade and commerce play dominant roles
in
234

http://www.ekoatlantic.com/about-us
http://www.indonesiainvestments.com/news/newscolumns/const
ruction-of-jakarta-ss-island-reclamation-project-can-
resume/item7180
resume/item7180
resume/item7180
Fig. 3. Classification of the types of geomorphic pat-
tern produced by geo-engineering of the additional
coastal land. 1. Expanded land construction, 2. Off-
shore construction, 3. Merged construction.
keeping cities connected. In doing so, implementation of
suitable
technology is central to the development of the associated infra-
structure. This requires an investment in transportation and, in
coastal
cities, shoreline infrastructure to facilitate the movement of
goods and
services. Megacities, such as Tianjin (China), Shenzhen
(China), Osaka,
(Japan) Tokyo (Japan) – all major port cities - have initiated
substantial
seaward land extension (Fig. 2(b), (c), 2(e) 2(h)) to support
growing
local, regional and global demand. Examples from the Middle
East
demonstrate how economic policies coupled with technological

ad-
vancement drive coastal land alteration and the construction of
artifi-
cial land. Advanced coastal dredging machines used to construct
the
Palm resorts in Dubai (Moussavi and Aghaei, 2013) and Amwaj
Island
in Bahrain (Fowler, Stephens, Santiago, & De Bruin, 2002) are
two
prominent examples. Overall, this rapid process of coastal land
re-
clamation has been facilitated by technological revolution
which has
precipitated massive geo-engineering of the coastline (Smith et
al.,
2015).
Increasing harbor and airport capacity appears to be a common
motivation for seaward land expansion. This is, in turn,
economically
driven, since as the consumption of goods and services
increases, the
physical capacity of these transport terminals needs to be
expanded. As
is apparent in the satellite images (Fig. 2h, m,f,k and j), Tokyo,
Fig. 4. Flow chart showing possible driving forces.
235
Mumbai, Chennai, Rio de Janerio and Buenos Aries have all

undertaken
substantial land alteration and construction to accommodate
transport
infrastructure in order to maintain their ongoing growth.
Bearing in
mind that the creation of new land represents an enormous
financial
challenge, sometimes the newly emerged residential spaces are
targeted
preferentially towards the economically elite who have the
financial
capacity to afford the plots. This can be observed in cities such
as
Shanghai, Jakarta, Lagos and Dubai, where huge investment has
been
made with a view to reaping the economic benefits in due
course. The
growing demand for additional urban land for various purposes
such as
transport, agriculture and settlement has prompted the
implementation
of appropriate urban planning policies and legislation (Kourtit,
Nijkamp, & Reid, 2014). For instance, the increasing number of
private
and commercial vehicles has forced the authorities to develop
the
transport infrastructure by constructing more roads and
associated
bridges and flyovers (Wu, Li, Ding, Li, & Sun, 2016). In most
cases,
seaward urban expansion is a clear reflection of population and
eco-
nomic growth, whereby the development of artificial land is
considered
as a form of investment to support and enhance economic
growth (Liu,

Wu, Cao, & Wu, 2017). However, in some cases, especially in
China,
government planned to build on lands which are now “ghost
cities”
(Sorace & Hurst, 2016; Yu, 2014) wherein huge multi-storied
buildings
await occupation both by residential and commercial clients
(Moreno &
González Blanco, 2014).
Lai et al., (2014) applied price theory to understanding the role
of
governance in coastal land extension and show how local
governments
pursue ways to create land through reclamation in order to
achieve
their planning goals. In China, the land use classification
system
adopted by the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR, 2007)
focuses on
the production function of land. Government policy is aimed at
managing increased demand for resources, especially in cities
which fall
under higher administrative ranks, and acts as the prevailing
driver of
urban expansion (Li, Wei, Liao, & Huang, 2015). In addition,
public
awareness and behavior may be an agency in relation to coastal
land
reclamation. For example, in a recent study on public awareness
about
the U.K. coastal environment in the UK, it was noted that
citizens are
generally aware of the threats, but ominously less informed
about
governmental management policies (Easman et al., 2017). In

this sense,
institutional and cultural elements play joint roles as drivers of
seaward
land expansion.
5.2. Potential impacts and risks
It is broadly accepted that construction related to coastal land
re-
clamation has various environmental consequences (Gagain,
2012;
Ghaffari, Habibzadeh, Mortaza, & Mousazadeh, 2017; Riley,
1976).
These consequences are not always accounted for and
sometimes such
developments are highly controversial. The construction of the
island
chain in the South China Sea, where dredging of the ocean floor
is se-
verely damaging coral reefs and other components of the local
marine
ecosystem is a case in point (Hutchings & Wu, 1987). Loss of
biodi-
versity in the Chinese coastal region due to building artificial
land has
been widely reported (Yang, Chen, Barter, & Piersma, 2011;
Duan et al.,
2016). In Hong Kong, sea water has been seriously polluted due
to the
inflow of construction waste and effluent released during the
process of
building artificial land. (Chan. et al., 2017). Several other
environ-
mental issues have been reported arising from the offsite
extraction of
the building material (Padmalal, Maya, Sreebha, & Sreeja,

2008;
Thornton et al., 2006; de Leeuw et al., 2010). It is clearly
critical to
investigate the more thoroughly than has been the case the
potential
ecological and geomorphological consequences emerging as a
result of
landfill material transfer, both at the source and destination.
Aside from biodiversity loss, geo-engineering of the coastline
and
coastal land expansion poses a significant threat to existing
wetlands.
Such ecosystems are diverse but vulnerable transition zones
between
terrestrial and aquatic biomes. Coastal land reclamation has
reduced
the land area covered by wetlands; since 1949, the loss of
coastal
wetlands in China is estimated to have been of the order of
22,000 km2
(Tian et al., 2016; Wang, Liu, Li, & Su, 2014). During the
operation of
geo-engineering construction techniques, coastal wetland
vegetation
may be converted to tidal mudflats and sub-tidal zones (Zhu,
Xie, Xu,
Ma, & Wu, 2016). The rapid rate of seaward land expansion
may result
in irreversible damage to coastal wetland ecosystems, which
ultimately
puts pressure on the overall sustainability of coastal resources,
a si-
tuation exacerbated by sea level rise. Coastal megacities are

already
exposed to serious risk, whereby projected future increasing sea
levels
pose a significant challenge (UN-Habitat 2016).
6. Conclusion
The paper demonstrates the global extent to which humans are
using and transforming coastal morphology through the
application of
advanced geo-engineering. The narrative of coastal expansion
illu-
strated by the 16 selected megacities provides stark evidence of
the
magnitude and rate of building beyond the land and raises some
critical
questions to prompt further analysis:
1. What material is used to construct such artificial land and
where are
the sources?
2. What are the possible geomorphic and other environmental
con-
sequences, both in the material source area and at the
construction
site?
3. How will such construction respond in the context of climate
change
and sea level rise?
4. What are the drivers of such development and how and why
do they
differ between cities?

In addition, the results of this study emphasize the scale of the
process in Asia, where most coastal megacities have adopted
large scale
land reclamation projects. The pattern of development is also
common
in urban centres that are not classified (according to population
num-
bers) as megacities, for example, Palm Island in Dubai,
Flovoland in
Netherlands and reclaimed islands of Maldives and Bangkok.
Building
beyond the land is undoubtedly a widespread global
phenomenon.
Population pressure clearly acts as one of the major drivers
underlying
the creation of new lands over sea, (Liu et al., 2017), although
it is
certainly not the only one. Further study of regional variations
in terms
of drivers, processes and potential impacts of land reclamation
is
needed.
The geomorphic classification of patterns constructed as a result
of
geoengineering at the coast presented here offers scope for
further re-
search as to the motives for developing such differentiated
structures.
For example, the type of land extension in Shanghai is different
to that
in Jakarta but similar to that of Lagos. Further consideration of
the
factors underlying these differences and similarities is clearly
war-
ranted. A comprehensive understanding of this requires an inter-

disciplinary approach which should include both engineering
and
geophysical perspectives in order to reveal what is driving the
demand,
what factors determine the particular pattern of land extension
and
what are its environmental effects.
Finally, in recognizing that both environmental and
anthropogenic
drivers act are at work in the rapid growth of artificial coastal
lands,
future studies should aim to identify the relative roles played by
these
critical driver(s). Through the availability of remote sensing
data, it is
now possible to estimate, monitor and showcase the ongoing
changes in
both marine and coastal ecosystems. Against a backdrop of sea
level rise
and other environmental and economic changes, it will be
interesting to
explore what will be the “geomorphic capacity” of these
evolving ar-
tificial offshore spaces in terms of their future sustainability.
236
Acknowledgements
This study has been conducted with the support from the
National

Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41401094
&
41771119], and the Research Fund of the Laboratory of Marine
Ecosystem and Biogeochemistry [grant number LMEB201713].
We are
grateful for the insightful and constructive comments of the
anonymous
reviewers. There are no conflicts of interest among the
researchers.
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scenarios for the Greater Shanghai Area, China. Computers,
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2010.12.002.

Zhou, N., Hubacek, K., & Roberts, M. (2015). Analysis of
spatial patterns of urban growth
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Applied Geography, 63,
292–303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.06.016.
Zhu, G., Xie, Z., Xu, X., Ma, Z., & Wu, Y. (2016). The
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orderly reclamation sea based on coastal management in rapid
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322083572Building
beyond land: An overview of coastal land reclamation in 16
global megacitiesIntroductionUrban expansion at the coastAim
and objectivesStudy areas, data and methodResults1Mapping
“building beyond land”Area reclaimedSpatial classification of
geo-engineered artificial landDiscussionUnderstanding driving
forcesPotential impacts and
risksConclusionAcknowledgementsReferences
1

7
China’s Coasts, a Contested Sustainability Frontier
Young Rae Choi
Introduction
In September 2014, I attended the International Workshop on
Intertidal Wetland
Conservation and Management in the Yellow Sea Provinces of
China hosted by the Beijing
Forestry University. The workshop included over 160
participants: officials from national and
provincial levels of the Chinese government, scientists, policy
researchers, and representatives
from international and national NGOs and project organizations
concerned with the conservation
of tidal flats. Discussion was fuelled by reports from numerous
sites along China’s eastern coasts,

all indicating uncontrollable practices of land reclamation and
the subsequent loss of tidal flats at
an alarming rate. Local officials demanded that the central
government pass stronger regulations
and more effectively enforce the existing ones. Yet, it was clear
that even the State Oceanic
Administration, China’s top-tier government apparatus in
charge of governing its coastal and
marine space and resources, had little power when it came to
safeguarding the disappearing tidal
flats. The conference participants lamented that the Chinese
state’s recent eagerness for
sustainable development did not seem to apply to coastal
territories that deserve equal
preservation for social and ecological advancement. The
workshop ended with a concluding
declaration that illustrated the uneasiness and the urgency that

were widely felt at the workshop:
The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
identified eco-civilization as
the national strategy. However, the implementation of national
polices including ecological
redlining, a national wetland conservation policy, and eco-
compensation, which began a
new era for coastal wetland conservation, never happened …
The status of reclamation
and degradation of the Yellow Sea wetlands is extremely
shocking and is resulting in a
very critical situation. In the last decade, 2% has been lost
every year. 1.4 million ha has
been lost since 2005, making up 22% of the total area of
wetlands.1

China’s coasts are going through a massive socioecological
transformation. Land
reclamation, accused at the conference and elsewhere of being
the most significant threat to the
biodiversity conservation of tidal flats, is a practice that creates
land by filling in coastal wetlands
and shallow waters. The latest reclamation boom that began in
the early 2000s, enrolling every
2
coastal province across China, is unprecedented in its scale and
speed. Between 2003 and 2005,
the annual reclaimed land area surged more than fivefold, from
21.23 to 116.62 km2. Since then
the annual average has stayed above 100 km2. Roughly
speaking, China adds the land equivalent

of two Manhattans every year. The total area of land that China
has created post-millennium is
over 1,450 km2.2
While the insatiable desire for land is fast encroaching upon the
coasts, resistance to land
reclamation for environmental reasons is becoming even more
difficult as the practice of
reclamation is increasingly perceived as ‘ecological’ in twenty-
first-century China. This
phenomenon signifies a break from previous assessments of
coastal reclamation as one of the
greatest and irreversible causes of marine biodiversity and
habitat degradation in the East Asian
region.3
While it seems to stand in opposition to the now popular ‘eco-’
agenda of the Chinese

state, reclamation projects today acquire legitimacy under the
emerging paradigm of sustainability.
They do this by incorporating eco-cities, renewable energy
infrastructure, carefully designed non-
human habitats, and nature reserves into their designs. In
contemporary China, reclamation is no
longer about destructive development; it is about creative
production (see also Paprocki; Zee;
and McDuie-Ra, this volume). Coastal land reclamation is
likewise not a mere land creation
project; it is about envisioning new materialities and values
about what China’s future should look
like (see Woodworth and Günel, this volume).
This chapter examines the recent transformations of China’s
coasts into resource frontiers
entangled with the country’s broader and deeper societal

transformations. Specifically, I look at
how China’s coastal spaces are reconfigured as repositories for
land provision and as an
experimental and an idealized platform where China’s new
vision for its sustainable future is
projected, tested, and demonstrated (see also Paprocki, this
volume). Along with others in this
volume, this chapter conceptualizes China’s coasts as an
emergent ‘frontier assemblage’ that is
invented through the works of multiple contingent forces and
processes and is subject to new and
more intensive forms of exploitation. Thinking through the
notion of frontier assemblage, I draw
upon Tania Li’s works on assembling land as an investible
resource (Li, 2014a, b) and Anna
Tsing’s insights on frontiers (Tsing, 2003, 2005). A resource, Li
argues, does not possess an

inherent quality to function as a resource. It is produced as a
resource through complex assembly
work of ‘heterogeneous elements including material substances,
technologies, discourses and
practices’ that render something valuable at specific moments in
time and place (Li, 2014b: 589).
3
Likewise, a resource frontier does not pre-exist but is made as a
frontier through the works of
material and imaginative renderings (Tsing, 2003).
Both Li and Tsing emphasize a conjunctural approach to the
formation of a resource
frontier. China’s coasts, I argue, are situated at a conjuncture of
a highly particular political

economy of land and an emerging politics around sustainability
as China’s next model of
economic and social development (see also Anderson, this
volume). This conjuncture does not
merely frame post-millennial coastal land-reclamation practices.
It shows where China is heading
against the backdrop of, on the one hand, the predicament of an
urban-driven growth strategy
that the country has moved toward for over two decades and, on
the other, the socioecological
crises that China’s modern development experiences have
brought in turn. The following sections
of this chapter examines the way these processes render
coastlines as new resource frontiers: at
once producing for land itself and spatializing sustainability
onto reclaimed land.

Making a frontier entails ‘conjuring’ certain positive
imaginaries about the frontier (Roy and
Ong, 2011; Li, 2014b) and rendering the place as backward,
underdeveloped, messy, and even
empty (see Cons and Eilenberg, this volume). Gavin Bridge
describes these dual frames of
frontier making as ‘bountiful emptiness’ (Bridge, 2001). A
frontier is depicted as full of potentials
and opportunities while imagined as unmapped and
unpopulated. Such dialectic formation of
frontiers has an effect of legitimizing interventions and
exploitations. Yet, interventions often fail.
As Jason Cons and Michael Eilenberg note in the Introduction
of this volume, frontiers often
become ‘terrains of failure, contestation, and conflict’. On
China’s coasts, ‘imposing sustainability’
creates, if not outright failures, tensions, frictions, and anxiety

that reveal the unsustainability of
the very interventions carried out as sustainable (Neumann,
1998).
Focusing on Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) and Tangshan
Caofeidian, two adjacent
large-scale reclamation sites in the Bohai Bay region, I
interrogate the controversies around this
particular vision of sustainability that have been projected onto
the coasts. While I draw upon a
literature on China’s eco-cities that has critiqued China’s
embrace of global discourses of
sustainability, my observations reveal that the processes of
spatializing sustainability reach
beyond eco-city sites and spread along the entire coast. I rely on
an assemblage approach to
develop a critical analysis of sustainability. In doing so, I
highlight the paradox of China’s

sustainability agenda which allows interventions to erase
existing biophysical and social realities
on the coast while writing new ecological futures upon the
subsequent coastal ruins (Stoler, 2013;
see also Paprocki, this volume). Navigating through reclamation
landscapes raises fundamental
4
questions about ‘sustainability’ of what, and for whom.
Addressing such questions, this chapter
makes a case that China’s coasts have turned into a contested
frontier of sustainability.
China’s Coasts as a Frontier Assemblage
The nationwide reclamation fever that sprouted in the early
2000s had gone almost

unnoticed by the public for many years. It was only after the
Tangshan government’s debt scandal
in 2013 regarding its inability to finance the Caofeidian
reclamation project that major Chinese
media outlets began to pay attention to large-scale reclamation
practices in the country.4 A year
later news spread globally with a Guardian report that delivered
vivid visual presentations of
Caofeidian that by that time had turned into a ‘ghost city’ (see
Woodworth, this volume).5 That
China’s coasts had not pre-existed as a major source of land and
that coastal reclamation
practices sporadically but contemporarily became a prominent
way to provision urban and
industrial land suggest what Bruce Braun called ‘the
contingency of the present’ (Braun, 2002).

An assemblage, according to Braun, is a transitory moment
where things do not pre-exist but
create a contingently and temporarily fixed state. China’s coasts
have emerged through a frontier
assemblage of heterogeneous events, processes, and forces
converging against the backdrop of
China’s developmental and environmental challenges. Among
the multiple elements that
constitute this assemblage, I here elaborate two at work at the
national level: a desire for land
and a desire for spatializing sustainability.
A Desire for Land
Land is a peculiar commodity. Land is geographically fixed and
as such is unable to be
removed. As Tania Li describes it, ‘you cannot roll it up and
take it away’ (Li, 2014: 589). Likewise,

land does not reproduce. Land may be repackaged for the
purpose of more intense and diverse
uses, but the sources for new land are strictly limited. Land in
China has an extraordinary status.
Despite the fact that China has the world’s third largest land
area as its territory, land is considered
one of the nation’s most critically scarce resources. In popular
discourses, land scarcity is linked
to population increase in markedly Malthusian terms: through
fears of shortages in food and
housing provision. For example, an often-invoked narrative says
that the size of arable land per
capita in China is merely 25–41% of the global average.6 Land
scarcity is narrativized to justify
interventions to protect agricultural land. Similarly, a need for
housing to accommodate the
growing population justifies the desire to seek additional land.

5
These two types of land use (agriculture and housing) have been
in intense conflict over
the past decades because of China’s rapid urbanization. During
what You-Tien Hsing termed ‘the
great urban transformation’ (Hsing, 2010), the urban population
rocketed – from 20% in 1978 to
more than 50% in 2012. The figure is expected to rise to 70% by
2030. In terms of physical space,
land designated as ‘urban’ expanded dramatically, at a rate even
higher than the growth of urban
population (Development Research Center of the State Council
and World Bank, 2014). As land
was mostly provisioned through rural-to-urban land conversion,

rampant and forceful conversion
of agricultural land led to massive displacement of rural
residents. A tense period of massive rural
demonstrations against urbanization in 1997 even forced the
government to declare a one-year
moratorium on land use conversion (Cartier, 2001; O’Brien,
2008).
The coastal land-reclamation boom of the 2000s is primarily
situated in this struggle
between urban and agricultural land. It is uncertain whether the
new regulations on farmland
protection were driven by the government’s political fear of
potential insurgencies by dissatisfied
farmers or by its concern about the decline in agricultural
production due to unregulated land
grabbing. Nevertheless, the late 1990s and the early 2000s saw
a rise of discourses invoking

potential food insecurity, which effectively legitimized the
government’s hurried move and strict
enforcement of agricultural protection. The New Land
Administration Law, set up in 1999,
designated a total of 1.2 million km2 of agricultural land as
protected basic farmland across China
(Lin and Yi, 2011; Lai et al., 2014). The outcome was the
creation of what is called the ‘red-line’:
a firm boundary where urban growth must stop before
encroaching onto rural land.
The notion of land scarcity translated into stricter farmland
protection policies hence set
up the stage for prompting coastal land reclamation as an
alternative source of land. This in turn
became a major source of income for local governments. A
study reports that up to 70% of local

governments’ revenues were estimated to come from land
development in 2010; the figure is
around 45% as of 2014.7 With this imperative for profit-making
from land development, local
governments frequently invoke the term ‘red-line’ when asked
about their rationales for delving
into large-scale reclamation. ‘If you want to move the red-line,
you must compensate hundreds of
thousands of yuan for the cost of farmland’, I was told in 2013
by a prefecture-level official in
charge of coastal reclamation.
But for what do they keep producing land? Today’s coastal
reclamation fever is
distinguished from previous ones not only for its scale but for
land use. Reclamation booms prior
to the 1990s were driven by the production of fish farms, salt
paddies, and agricultural land. In

contrast, official statistics indicate that over 90% of the new
land reclaimed since 2002 is
6
earmarked for ‘construction land’, i.e. for urban and industrial
purposes.8 Given the scale of
postmillennial reclamation practices, this indicates that the
desire for land is specifically about
what Myung-Rae Cho has called ‘construction as accumulation’
and, in particular, the spatial
expansion of urban development (Cho, 2006). In this sense,
discourses of land scarcity that drive
reclamation are relative ones: the demand for urban land from
reclaimed coastal spaces was a
reaction to the heightened institutional barrier to accessing

agricultural land, while the underlying
cause of urbanization was never questioned.
A Desire for Spatializing Sustainability
Circa the late-2000s, a new phenomenon began to emerge where
coastal land
reclamation was increasingly labelled as an ‘ecological’
practice. In other words, reclamation
projects were increasingly reimagined as sound ‘eco’ projects
that were good not only for growth,
but also for the environment. ‘Eco-’ labels flourish in
reclamation sites today. It is not cities, but
‘eco-cities’ that are built on reclaimed land. New industrial
zones are justified by their reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and pollution and their
increased recycling functions for
realizing a circular economy (Zhang et al., 2011). Renewable

energy infrastructure as well as the
engineered nature in the form of canals, wetlands, and green
landscaping have become integral
to coastal land-reclamation projects.
This ‘environmentalization’ or ‘greening’ of coastal land
reclamation is a key feature of the
state’s broader sustainability agenda (Chen, 2013; Anderson,
this volume). This agenda seeks to
revamp the very configuration of society in order to secure
‘harmonious, balanced, and
sustainable development’. The agenda can be traced back to
‘eco-civilization’, a slogan
announced by Hu Jintao at the 17th National Congress of the
Communist Party in 2007. Julie Sze
notes that Hu’s speech was ‘the first time the Chinese
Communist Party had highlighted ecology,

putting it explicitly on the Party’s agenda’ (Sze, 2015: 36).
Since then, the Chinese state has
pursued this goal aggressively. China’s past two national five-
year plans adopted various
mechanisms including green finance, an emission trading
scheme, and investment in expanding
renewable energy infrastructure.9 While the question remains as
to how many of these
mechanisms will be effectively enforced, an increasing number
of commentators agree with Jane
Golley’s claim that ‘there is ample evidence to suggest this
commitment is real’ (Golley, 2016: 7).
Golley argues that China’s capacity to bring changes has
reached ‘an extent that green
supporters in advanced democratic countries can only dream
about’ (2016: 7). China’s push for

7
sustainability is now envied and celebrated in various venues,
as demonstrated by a recent World
Economic Forum video boasting that ‘China is now the world’s
biggest producer of solar power’.10
‘Sustainability’ as a malleable, undemonstrated concept crucial
to the
environmentalization of the Chinese state necessitates space to
test its possibilities and to prove
its feasibility and efficacy (Chen et al., 2017). In China, new
eco-cities have assumed that role.
Eco-cities are a globally emerging urban planning model
designed to save energy and minimize
environmental impacts. Eco-cities have been enthusiastically
embraced by the state as a solution

to the multi-faceted socioecological challenges emerging from
decades of industrialization-driven
development (Caprotti, 2016). Moreover, eco-cities allow the
Chinese state to continue to pursue
sustainability without giving up an urbanization-driven growth
model. In effect, eco-cities are at
the centre of the national land development strategy. As Chien
argues, eco-cities are ‘the third
round of large-scale transformation since the economic reform’
following the development zones
(kaifaqu) in the 1980s and college towns (daxuecheng) in the
1990s (Chien, 2013). These indicate
that eco-cities are themselves an assemblage formed at a
historical conjuncture of the material
consequences of intense industrialization of the past, the
ongoing urbanization-driven growth
strategy, and China’s emergent vision for a sustainable future.

Many authors have studied eco-cities constructed on reclaimed
land, although they have
not focused on processes of reclamation per se (Chang and
Sheppard, 2013; Joss, 2015; Sze,
2015; Caprotti, 2016). Yet the two processes are intricately
entangled in ways that are beyond
the political economy of land that renders coasts an attractive
source of land. The new state
agenda of sustainability is less tolerant about the massive scale
of ecological destruction that
inevitably accompanies reclamation practices. Destruction needs
to be justified by producing
something countervailingly desirable. Eco-cities fulfil such a
gap. In other words, the making of a
sustainability frontier is essential for legitimizing the desire for
land. This way, the desire for

spatializing the vision of sustainability and the desire for land
intersect through reclamation on
China’s coasts.
A Contested Sustainability Frontier
The Binhai New Area in the Tianjin municipality and
Caofeidian in the prefecture-level
Tangshan City in Hebei are among the largest coastal
reclamation sites in China. The story of the
two reclamation sites, despite their differential administrative
status and reputation, illustrates
several characteristics shared by numerous other sites along
China’s coasts. Specifically, they
both feature large-scale land development driven by the strong
will of local governments, an often-
8

prolonged construction period due to financial constraints, and
mixed industrial and urban
planning. Both include an eco-city plan which effectively
‘greenwashes’ the reclamation project
site.
In the TBNA and Tangshan Caofeidian, local governments’
political motivations grounded
on the notion of ‘lagging behind’ prompted large-scale
reclamation. At the regional level, there
was a widespread perception that the Jingjinji (Beijing–Tianjin–
Hebei) metropolitan region had
been losing competition compared to the dazzling success of the
Pearl River Delta region. At the
city level, the rapid growth of other provincial-level
municipalities such as Beijing and Shanghai in

the post-reform era prompted the public sentiment that ‘Tianjin
became an underdeveloped city,
lagging behind Beijing, her neighbor, during China’s 30 years
of planned economy’ (Zhu and Sun,
2009: 195). Similarly, the Caofeidian project allegedly was
propelled by the Tangshan
government’s jealousy of Tianjin’s relative success.
In this context, reclamation was part of broader development
planning for boosting
economic growth in both sites. The TBNA is composed of old
and new development areas,
including three major industrial zones (Tianjin Economic-
Technological Development Area,
Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone, and Tianjin Port), three
administrative districts (Tanggu, Hangu,
and Dagang), and the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City. About
307 km2 of coast was reclaimed as

new development over the past decade with more planned in the
near future (Zhu et al., 2017).
Tangshan, on the other hand, envisioned its own development
planning after it lost to Tianjin in
the national bid for the siting of the Sino-Singapore Eco-City.
The city government largely relies
on coastal reclamation for land provision and on bank loans.
The CFD, like the TBNA, is a
comprehensive land planning project including the ambitious
Caofeidian International Eco-City
(150 km2). About 310 km2 of reclamation is planned; about 230
km2 has turned into land so far
(Wang et al., 2014; Liang et al., 2015).
But perhaps the key dynamic in assembling the coast as a
frontier is the civil engineering
process of making land. As recent infrastructure studies

demonstrate, large-scale civil
engineering practices not only bring transformative
socioecological change but do so by
enhancing irreversibility in such a change (Graham, 2010;
Carse, 2014; Harvey and Knox, 2015).
Land reclamation is a multi-stage process – necessitating
building a seawall, drying the ground
inside the wall, filling in the ground with such materials as
sand, mud, and construction waste,
and pounding and desalinating the elevated ground. The process
of reclamation creates messy
and dusty landscapes and irreversibly buries marine life and
habitats underground. For these
reasons, elsewhere in Asia, particularly in South Korea, coastal
land-reclamation projects were

9
intensely opposed by environmentalists for this brutal
materiality of land-making (Hahm and Kang,
2007; Park, 2007; Choi, 2014).
In the TBNA and Caofeidian, as is in many other sites in China,
significant civil opposition
has not occurred for a variety of reasons. Yet, the dual tasks of
frontier making – conjuring the
dream of a sustainable future and rendering the previous
environment as undesirable – are still
ongoing. Apart from the various venues such as websites and
government documents, visitor
centres seek to make the imagined future a tangible reality. The
visitor centres of the Tianjin Sino-
Singapore Eco-City and the Caofeidian International Eco-City
embody the desire for sustainability

with overwhelming representations of ‘green’ and ‘ecology’.
For example, the Tianjin Eco-City
visitor centre welcomes visitors with a picture of egrets and
lush wetlands covering an entire wall
of the main hall. The miniature planning model of the TBNA,
not just the eco-city, is full of trees
and waterways. In contrast, the past landscape is narrated as a
polluted wasteland. For example,
a series of images tells the tale of transforming a heavy-metal
contaminated pond into a clean
waterfront. The visitor centres deliver a carefully purposed
message that the grey construction
landscape outside the building is merely transitory and that a
new blue and green future is will
soon become a reality. In doing so, they hide the destructive
dimension of reclamation; instead,

reclamation is presented as a desirable practice that rescues
nature from the existing status of
heavy pollution and even lets it prosper. In this way, the visitor
centres display the transformation
of China’s sustainability dream into reality. In advancing this
agenda, they encourage the visitor
to see past the actual scenes they see and instead envision a
green and sustainable future (Figure
7.1).
Increasingly, efforts to create a sustainability frontier on
reclamation sites requires a
rewriting and memorialization of local histories, fishing
traditions, and cultures. This produces an
ironic situation in which the fisher communities and marine
ecologies that have been destroyed
through reclamation are remembered as those in need of
preservation. For planners, they are

locally-specific assets for tourism, which is considered as a
less-polluting and profitable eco-
industry’ squarely fit for a sustainable future. For example,
within the TBNA, the Tianjin Tourism
Area next to the Tianjin Sino-Singapore Eco-City enshrines a
42.3 m-tall statue of Mazu, a sea
goddess known as a patron of fishers and sailors. The statue was
erected in memory of the very
culture and tradition of fishing destroyed through reclamation
(Figure 7.2).
The gigantic sea goddess powerlessly watching over waters
being transformed into dry
land signifies a troubling vision of sustainability. The frontier
of sustainability, specifically
construed as an urban, energy-efficient, and recreational utopia
for some, is a dystopia for others.

10
While a majority of fishers moved away from the two
reclamation sites by the time of my research,
a few of them remain in Zuidong, an ad hoc development
project site of the greater Caofeidian
area. They attest to how limited the government’s policy for the
displaced is.
Seasonal fishers whose hukous (household registers) are
elsewhere, regardless of how
long they have been engaged in fishing in the area, received no
compensation for their
displacement. The residents of Zuidong on the other hand were
forced to relocate to new housing
provided by the city government, which already had developed
architectural defects. Relocation

to a town and acquisition of an urban hukou, which generally is
understood as a more attractive
option than remaining in a rural village, can present substantial
challenges to fishers who are not
accustomed to the land-based culture of regular incomes and
expenditures. An elderly shrimp-oil
seller in Zuidong, for example, worried that he would not be
able to pay monthly rents and utility
fees for the relocation housing.
Raising the question of whether the new spaces of sustainability
along China’s coasts will
actually achieve a sustainable future contests the very concept
of ‘sustainability’. First of all, there
is an impending resource crisis. An urban planner at the China
Academy of Urban Planning and
Design who participated in the planning process of Caofeidian

told me that the large green spaces
built into the eco-city design are worsening chronic
groundwater shortage problems in the region.
The Tianjin-Tangshan region is already running two
desalination plants with a plan to build
another.11 Meanwhile, an employee of the Tianjin Sino-
Singapore Eco-City told me that that
renewable energy-generating streetlights, which were built even
before the construction of
buildings that will use the electricity, have sat idle for a
prolonged period of time as the reclamation
projects were delayed. In the meantime, for maintenance against
corrosion, they require the use
of extra electricity.
The vision of sustainability embodied in land reclamation also
saddles local governments

with massive financial burdens. When the anticipated financial
flow does not materialize – when
reclaimed land remains unsold – the material realities of
sustainability could helplessly shatter. In
May 2013, Caofeidian received nationwide attention as a news
reporter disclosed the financial
plight of the project. The report estimated that the Tangshan
government’s debt would be over 60
billion RMB (equivalent to US$9.25 billion), as promised
private investment was cut in half in just
two years from 2009 to 2011.12 It was not only Caofeidian that
suffered from the slowdown in the
Chinese economy after the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.
But the project’s financial hardship
stood out in the absence of higher-level political commitment in
comparison to the TBNA. When
I visited the site several months after the news, the Caofeidian

International Eco-City construction
11
had already stopped.13 A spacious upper-middle class housing
complex designed to mimic an
American suburban neighbourhood was entirely abandoned. The
roofs were broken and the mini
solar-wind energy-generating stands were corroded. Weeds had
grown high. At the outward edge
of the eco-city, intended to be another luxurious waterfront
residential area, teals had hatched
eggs on dusty, desert-like land created with mud pumped from
the sea bottom just outside the
seawall. According to a 2014 survey conducted by the Let Birds
Fly Public Fund, over 40% of

businesses and industries in Caofeidian were also either closed
or left uncompleted (Figure
7.3).14
Taking the examples of the Caofeidian International Eco-City
and another never-built
Dongtan Eco-city in a suburb of Shanghai, Changjie Zhan and
Martin de Jong argue that financial
failures of eco-city projects in China are ‘not uncommon’ (Zhan
and de Jong, 2017). Studying the
case of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City which they claim
to be ‘the best-known and arguably
the most successful large-scale sustainable newtown
development project in China’, the authors
try to find solutions to secure financial sustainability of the
supposedly sustainable cities (2017:
201). Yet, even the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, let alone
the entire TBNA, remains only

partially complete and years behind the initial planning
schedule despite the fact that ‘the stakes
the Chinese national and Singaporean governments put in it are
so high that they will do
everything to make it a success’ (2017: 213). The juxtaposition
of Caofeidian and the TBNA show
that the coastal sustainability frontier sustained by the dream of
profit is inescapably a contested
space.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have explored how China’s coasts have
become an essential part of the
Chinese state’s sustainability agenda. Moreover, I have
examined how reclamation sites that sit
at the crossroad of the desire for land and the desire for
sustainability become troubled spaces.

The transformations of the coastal landscapes and the
reconfigurations of coast-society relations
in the twenty-first century China are not isolated events. They
are the outcome of complex and
contingent forces in Chinese political economy. The
complexities produce the conditions to project
and materialize a vision of sustainable futures onto the present.
These new visions not only mask
the destructive outcomes of coastal land reclamation,
reconfiguring them as a productive
ecological practice. They also create particular and troubling
new landscapes and materialities.
The concept of frontier assemblage helps interrogate and expose
meaning making within
and around coastal space. As I have shown, new debates around
land-reclamation produces

12
China’s coasts as a sustainability frontier. They do so, first by
‘unmapping’ spaces laden with rich
human and non-human histories (Tsing, 2003; Roy, 2011; Lentz,
this volume); and second by
remapping an idealized ‘dream of eco-development’ onto the
spaces that are made empty through
destructive reclamation (Sze, 2015). In the process, discourses
of sustainability re-write local
histories for the promotion of ecological tourism.
The story of Mazu, the sea goddess cast as a statue in the
Tianjin Tourism Area, does not
end there. Originally from Meizhou, a small island in Fujian
province, Mazu is most popular in

Taiwan and the southern provinces of China.15 On the contrary,
she is an uncommonly revered
figure in the Bohai Bay. Her temples in Northern China are
mostly small and modest, in stark
contrast to the lavish and colourful ones in the South China Sea
where she is dearly worshiped.
Nevertheless, here she is, enshrined in a park named after her,
instead of a temple, by the TBNA
tourism department. The Mazu Cultural Park is one of the
tourism development projects
associated with the efforts to create a popular Binhai brand.16
This foreign, out-of-place goddess
is painfully looking over the fishers in predicament, who, it
turns out, are not her own people in
the first place. The place where the remaining fishers would be
driven out eventually will be filled
with tourists who come to appreciate the lost cultures of the

seas. This is a deeper irony of what
is meant by a sustainability frontier.
Figure 7.1 Tianjin Sino-Singapore Eco-City visitor centre.
Photo: Young Rae Choi.
Figure 7.2 Statue of Mazu, a sea goddess known as the protector
of fishers and sailors, in the
Tianjin Tourism Area. Photo: Young Rae Choi.
Figure 7.3 Abandoned houses, Caofeidian International Eco-
City. Photo: Young Rae Choi.
Notes
1 See Declaration of International Workshop on Intertidal
Wetland Conservation and Management in the Yellow Sea
Provinces of China. (2014). In: International Workshop on
Intertidal Wetland Conservation and Manageent in the
Yellow Sea Provinces of China, 2. Beijing.

2 State Oceanic Administration. (2003–2013). Sea Use
Management Report.
www.soa.gov.cn/zwgk/hygb/hysyglgb/201403/t20140320_31036
.html.
3 For example, see UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Project (2007) and
MacKinnon et al. (2012).
4 See Liu, Y., et al. (2013). Tangshan Caofeidian construction
suspension warning. Twenty-First Century Economy
Report (25 May).
http://finance.qq.com/a/20130525/001268.htm.
5 See Sabrie, G. (2014). Caofeidian, the Chinese eco-city that
became a ghost town – in pictures. The Guardian 23
July:1–16.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/jul/23/caofeidi
an-chinese-eco-city-ghost-town-inpictures.
6 See Ministry of Land and Resources of the PRC. (2004).
Communiqué on land and resources of China 2003.

www.mlr.gov.cn/mlrenglish/communique. See also Smil (1999)
and Chen (2007).
13
7 See Development Research Center of the State Council, and
World Bank. (2014). Urban China: Toward efficient,
inclusive, and sustainable urbanization. World Bank
Publications.
8 See State Oceanic Administration 2003–2013.
9 CCICED. (2016). Interim Report of ‘China Green Transition
Outlook 2020–2050’ Project.
10 World Economic Forum. (2017). China is now the world’s
biggest producer of solar power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB63GYAXe50.

11 Wong, E. (2014). Desalination Plant Said to Be Planned for
Thirsty Beijing. The New York Times (15 April).
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/world/asia/desalination-
plant-beijing-china.html?_r=0.
12 See Liu, Y., H. Liu, and S. Yang. (2013).
13 See Sabrie (2014); Vanderklippe, N. and E. Reguly. (2014).
China’s looming debt bomb: Shadow banking and the
threat to growth. The Global and Mail (3 May).
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-
business/chinaslooming-
debt-bomb-shadow-banking-and-the-threat-to-
growth/article18409275/?page=all.
14 Zhou, H., S. Chen, D. Huang, W. Jin, and Y. Wang. (2014).
Intertidal zone loss, migrant birds have nowhere to
rely on – Yellow and Bohai Sea coastal reclamation sites survey
report.
15 Wu, M., and Z. Li. (2017). Tianjin Binhai New Area: Rising

Manufacturing Center and Tourism Destination.
China Today (2 March).
www.chinatoday.com.cn/english/culture/2017-
03/02/content_736432.htm.
16 Wang, N. (2017). Tourism development in TBNA prioritizes
‘Binhai Brand’. Tianjin Binhai New Area
Government.
http://english.tjbh.com/system/2017/08/14/030259979.shtml.

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