Coastal Reclamation

Major coastal cities experiencing rapid urbanization increasingly rely on coastal land to support economic growth and infrastructure development. One common approach is coastal reclamation, which creates new land by filling shallow marine areas with materials such as rock, sand, and soil. Reclaimed land is widely used for ports, residential developments, industrial zones, tourism facilities, and other coastal infrastructure.

While reclamation provides significant economic and social benefits, it also alters the coastal environment. Direct impacts include the loss of valuable habitats such as mangrove forests, benthic communities, coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and other coastal ecosystems. Reclamation also changes local hydrodynamic conditions, including current circulation, water levels, and wave characteristics. These physical changes may subsequently affect sediment transport, bathymetry, turbidity, salinity, hypoxic and anoxic events, biodiversity, species composition, harmful algal blooms, eutrophication, fisheries resources, and the spatial extent of marine habitats. Changes in current circulation often trigger cascading effects throughout the coastal ecosystem.

To minimize these impacts, coastal reclamation projects must be carefully planned by considering both engineering and environmental factors. Advanced numerical modeling provides an effective decision-support tool by evaluating multiple reclamation design alternatives before construction begins. A typical modeling workflow consists of four stages: (1) simulating baseline coastal conditions before reclamation, (2) developing alternative reclamation layouts based on the baseline simulation, (3) evaluating each design through numerical simulations to quantify hydrodynamic and environmental impacts, and (4) selecting the optimal design that achieves the best balance between engineering performance, project cost, and environmental sustainability.

The modeling framework integrates several numerical modules. Hydrodynamic Modeling simulates current circulation and water-level variations. Wave Modeling—including Spectral Wave, Shallow Water Spectral Wave, Parabolic Mild Slope, Elliptic Mild Slope, Wave Refraction–Diffraction, Boussinesq Wave, and Wave Analysis modules—evaluates wave transformation and wave impacts on reclaimed areas. Coastal Morphology and Littoral Processes & Shoreline Dynamics simulate long-term changes in shoreline configuration and coastal landforms. Ecosystem Modeling assesses the impacts of reclamation on marine habitats and ecological processes, while Marine GIS integrates all simulation results with supporting spatial datasets for mapping, visualization, and decision-making.