Skip to main content

Northern European Enclosure Dam (NEED): Do we really NEED this?

How far you can go to protect your cities and towns from rising sea level? The answer is we can build a dam on sea.

Yes, this is true. "Northern European Enclosure Dam" is an extraordinary effort to protect millions of people from the threat of ever rising sea level due to global warming by enclosing all of the North Sea. Amazing isn’t it?

This is an effort to protect important economic regions of 15 Northern European countries against sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change.

North sea is a part of the Atlantic Ocean in Northern Europe that is encircled by Norway and Denmark in the east, Scotland and England in the west, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the south.



 

Key points of the proposed dam

It would be a megaproject that aims to construct two dams of a combined length of 637 km. it stretches between France, the United Kingdom and Norway. The first dam would be 476 km, between Northern Scotland and Western Norway with an average depth of 121 km, and the second would be of length 161 km, between France and Southwestern England with an average depth of 85 km. According to the scientists, this project is considered as the most feasible option to protect the Northern Europe from sea level rise by separating the North and Baltic Seas from Atlantic Ocean.



Need for such project

o   The concept of constructing NEED showcases the extent of protection efforts that are required when mitigation efforts fail to fight against the sea level rise.

o   While NEED may seem an “overwhelming” and “unrealistic” solution. However, NEED could be “potentially favourable” financially and in scale when compared with alternative solutions to limit SLR.

o   According to researchers the solutions to SLR are classified into 3 categories namely, taking no action, protection and managed treat and NEED is categorised into the second category.

o   NEED is anticipated to have the least direct influence on people’s daily lives and can be built at a reasonable cost.

o   Such mega enclosures could potentially be implemented in other regions of the world facing similar problem of SLR such as the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Red Sea.

Project cost

Total cost associated with NEED is estimated at between €250 billion and €550 billion. If construction is spread over a period of 20 year, this will work out to an annual expense of around 0.1% of the GDP of the 15 Northern European countries that would be protected by such a dam.

Negative Impacts

The construction will “heavily impact” marine and terrestrial ecosystems inside and outside the enclosure, will have social and cultural implications, and affect tourism and fisheries.

Presently, all the island nations and coastal countries are facing the treat of sea level rising. Is projects like NEED can be a feasible option to all these countries? I think not, because not all of them are that economically strong to finance such mega projects, so what options they are left with. This we all need to think.

 

Thank you for reading this article, you can share your feedback in the comments section. You can also suggest the topics on which you want our analysis.

Follow our facebook page for more such articles athttps://www.facebook.com/thecivilanalyst


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biodegradable Golf Balls: Eco-friendly Solution for every Golfer

Did you know that every year thousands of golf balls are lost in our planet's waterways? This probably does not surprise anyone who plays golf. What harm could a little golf ball do anyways? Well, new studies are coming to light that the little golf ball is a big problem. As they break down they release their contents into the ecosystem. A modern golf ball is made from the following: thermoplastics, zinc oxide, zinc acrylate, benzoyl peroxide, heavy metals, polybutadiene, and other secret combinations of exotic materials not disclosed by the manufacturer. These are not good for the planet! Don't forget about the plastic portion of the ball either. As it breaks down the plastic turns into microplastics. From the deepest depths of the ocean to the snow of the Artic microplastics have been found by pollution researchers to invade every corner of our planet. The size of the current microplastic pollution problem is huge! Estimates are between 15 trillion and 51 trillion microplasti...
2 comments
Read more

Urban Sprawl: An Emerging Issue

  Humans are becoming an increasingly urban species. They want to move to metropolitan cities and urban centres for better jobs opportunities or for the excitement of the city life. And this possess a really challenging developmental question of where are all these people going to go and if you live in a city, you might have noticed the expansion and the development of cities to suburbs and this is what we call urban sprawl. In 1937, Earle Draper - one of the first city planners in the south-eastern United States coined the term ‘sprawl.’ The urban sprawl is essentially the geographical expansion of a city or town and is often characterised as low density development, meaning housing is being built on really large land areas or scattered land locks, single use zoning and is also characterised by the increased reliance on private automobiles for each person transportation. The sprawl generally takes place in radial course around the city centre or in linear direction along the highw...
3 comments
Read more

Green Tax for a Greener Society

  Recently, Tesla has launched their electric cars in the Indian market. Though there has been a mixed reaction by the Indian consumers because of the price of the cars and lack of charging facilities. It is expected that Tesla will find it difficult to compete with the Diesel and Petrol variants as well as Indian electric car manufacturers. Talking about electric cars in order to curb environmental pollution and encourage people to switch to eco-friendly transportation mode, the Union Ministry for Road Transport and Highways of India has approved a proposal to levy a ‘Green Tax’ on old vehicles. Experts argues that, charging taxes on vehicles that cause environmental pollution will decrease environmental loss in a cost effective manner by encouraging behavioural changes among people. The Green Tax can be seen as a measure to strengthen India’s commitment to the Paris Agreement of 2015. As per the agreement India has targeted to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33...
Post a Comment
Read more