at this very second multiple countries around the world are racing to expand their territories claiming lands moving borders and asserting dominance over neighboring nations while some fight for the mainland others have begun claiming footholds out in the ocean and not just by claiming islands but by building them from the sea floor up that sounds impossible right on the contrary today there are some 250 artificial islands that have been developed around the world though not all of these man-made islands appear on world maps for reasons that range from the dangerous to the downright dumb with that said it's time to take a look at the terrifying and stupid reason some artificial islands are being built how to build an island okay so usually islands form naturally as a byproduct of violent volcanic eruptions at the bottom of the ocean huge earthquakes buckle the earth's crust forming cracks of molten magma along the sea floor these cracks form volcanoes that spew out hot lava which cools in the water and solidifies into rock this rock builds up over time and eventually emerges above the waves as a whole new island birds scatter seeds as they fly over shell fragments and other debris washes up onto the newly formed shores and ta-da and otherwise barren rock is gradually transformed into a sandy green paradise that's the life cycle of a natural island but unlike mother nature humans can't control volcanoes as such we took a simpler approach to our island building origins starting some 5 000 years ago the lao people constructed islands on the reefs of the lao lagoon they'd paddle out with their canoes dive for rocks and then drop them onto the reefs gradually creating the foundations of an island from the ocean floor up a process that took centuries though the results were worth it in the end as the man-made re-violence were far nicer real estate than the swampy coast inhabited by their neighbors and these islands stood the test of time thousands of years later they make up part of the archipelago now known as the solomon islands but since the painstaking efforts of the lao people we've worked out how to speed up the process of building artificial islands with modern technology we can even beat volcanoes in an island building race instead of using rocks modern artificial islands are made with sand that may seem counterintuitive because surely rocks are more stable than sand right i mean medieval castles made of stone can last for 500 years while we've all seen even the sturdiest sand castles wiped out by a single wave so how long could a sand island last against the colossal forces of the ocean well you'd be surprised how strong compacted marine sand actually is a square yard sandbox with a depth of one foot weighs about 900 pounds that's just under half a ton and that's sand when it's dry when it's wet it's even heavier with that in mind artificial islands can be thousands of square yards in size amounting to millions of tons of sand forming a solid dense block in the ocean a whole lot stronger than any sand castle on the beach but how do you get all that sand to one specific point in the ocean that's where fleets of specially designed dredger ships come into play these ships are like vacuum cleaners of the ocean they host giant tubes fitted with cutting attachments that suck up tons of material from the seafloor and grind it up into a fine paste-like material the collected material is then sprayed onto the tops of natural reefs already on the seabed building up these existing structures into brand new islands and these dredger ships are a lot faster than the lao people's canoes and rocks chinese dredger ships like the tianjin for example have been built to shift around a mammoth one million gallons of materials per hour that's the equivalent of filling around two olympic sized swimming pools every 60 minutes to strengthen the sand it's vibro compacted into shape the loose sand grains are pounded together to form a dense block with some mint poured over the foundations to harden the bottom layers finally to fend off even the most monstrous of waves millions of tons of rock are placed around the sand island in a protective barrier and there you have it a man-made island although building an island and populating an island are two very different problems as the shoreline city of dubai proves all too well with its white sands blue skies and turquoise seas dubai is one of the world's most beautiful cities though it's getting awfully crowded these days with 3.3 million residents it makes up just under a third of the entire population of the united arab emirates in order to create more space for valuable coastal real estate developers started construction on a series of artificial islands back in 2001. the most famous of these is the palm jumeirah which surprise surprise is shaped like a giant palm a crescent surrounds all 17 fronds of the 3.1 mile diameter palm to act as a breakwater structure though to my eyes this changes the shape into a stingray but don't tell the developers i said that as they invested a whopping 12 billion dollars into making a palm-shaped island the entire palm made up of more than 4.2
trillion cubic feet of sand and rocks enough to fill the 80 000 seat att stadium 40 times over stretches across 1 380 acres of ocean and host rows of luxury villas and if you didn't already think an ocean view is expensive some of these villas are listed for more than 27 million dollars each that's a little too much moolah if you ask me but luckily the atlantis hotel has been built along the arct crescent looking out over the dolphin lagoon and while the entire palm is spread out in the ocean the trunk is home to a wide array of department stores that cater to the super rich locals it's everything a resident can need all in one stingray i mean palm shaped island but it's not the only artificial island on dubai's coastline although the others looked more like desert cast off than luxury real estate out of the four artificial islands developers set out to construct a long dubai's coast back in the early 2000s only the palm jumeirah has been completed the other islands fell afoul of the 2008 financial crash when cash-strapped investors pulled out and developers lost their funding as a result the palm dire which was supposed to be a staggering eight times the size of the palm jumeirah it's currently just a random scattering of sand peeking above the waves and though the neighboring palm jabel ali's shape has been completed investors pulled out of the project entirely leaving the sandbags sparring for more than 10 years so in the end developers wasted billions of dollars just moving a bunch of sand right in the wallet with their limited funds developers decided instead to focus on completing the world islands an archipelago of 300 islands flush with top-end developments the shape of which is you guessed it supposed to resemble the world map as you can see together these islands cover an area much larger than the palm jumeirah and the amount of sand required to build all the individual islands was more than double what the palm needed an utterly unreal ten and a half trillion cubic feet yeah that's trillion with a t all of this was dredged from the ocean and deposited in a shallow region where the seabed was between 30 and 55 feet beneath the waves each island was built to crest a little under 10 feet above the shoreline creating perfectly peaked islands totally detached from the mainland obviously this wasn't cheap costing the developers more than an eye-watering 14 billion dollars in total but that's where the building stopped the islands were supposed to be fully developed and completed by 2008 but the financial crash wiped those plans off the map literally today only a handful of islands mainly in this section known affectionately as the heart of europe have been fully developed the rest are tragically sparse with even the richest people in the world not really seeing the appeal of owning an undeveloped island one of which can cost up to 1.8 billion dollars that's two and a half miles from the nearest shore while developers have hinted repeatedly that work will soon resume the overextended novelty of the entire project has turned it into one very expensive world ending decision well do you think dubai's world islands will ever be completed hit that like button below if you do or leave a comment down below and tell me what you think they should be turned into instead now not all artificial islands are created purely for overly expensive real estate purposes in some cases their uses are a lot more intimidating but before i reveal these sinister secrets hit that subscribe button all done great now let's explore the artificial islands that technically you aren't meant to know exist the invisible islands though they aren't officially recognized on any world maps china's artificial islands are bright red spots on other countries radars also referred to as the great wall of sand since 2014 china has created 3 200 acres of new land in the south china sea that's the equivalent of more than 2 400 football fields but the chinese government aren't building these islands to start their own super bowl no this country's goals are far more worrying you see this stretch of ocean is one of the world's richest natural resources an energy gold mine it contains around 11 billion barrels of oil this is rapidly being guzzled up by china as the country goes through 12.8 million barrels of oil per day but even when the oil supplies run out there's still 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to be tapped into that means the south china sea has enough resources within it to make it a world powering battery the area also acts as the highway for a third of the world's global shipping trade so basically whoever controls the south china sea also holds the key to some of the world's biggest economies it's no surprise then that multiple countries want a piece of the pie currently claims over the south china sea are hotly disputed and fought over by seven key nations brunei malaysia indonesia taiwan vietnam the philippines and china six of these countries stake their claims based on the united nations convention on the law of the sea this states that territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles off a country's coastline while their exclusive economic zone or eez extends to 200 nautical miles the eez is sort of like calling shotgun where countries have exclusive rights to all the resources and trade in their edz so any fish caught and any oil found within that area is theirs areas outside of the eez are considered international waters and are shared by everyone though here things can get a little crowded now you may have noticed i said that only six of these countries stake their claims based on the un's eez rule just like a greedy sibling china doesn't just want a single slice but the whole damn pie china has outlined their claim based on a border called the nine dash line it stretches from taiwan to malaysia and covers 90 of the south china sea they left the other 10 so as not to appear greedy though really who wants the pie crust when all the filling's been taken china bases its claim on naval expeditions dating back to the 15th century which is like saying you've got an eternal front seat shotgun because you sat in it once when you were five the rest of the world sees right through this flimsy excuse so china has started bending the rules to their own benefit which leads us here to the spratly islands also known as the great wall of sand though they may seem like a random cluster of sand banks they are in fact prime real estate set right in the heart of the south china sea and guess what the country that claims the spratly island can also extend their eez however it's difficult to claim uninhabited piles of sand even if you have a sand castle with your own country's flag stuck in it so a few nations have built small buildings and ports on their claimed islands but china has taken their development to a whole other level under everyone's noses china has constructed whole new islands on these underwater reefs and has been building each of them up in turn into military bases so far they've built some 72 fighter jet hangars at its three air bases fiery cross mischief island and the subi reef even when an international tribunal declared these islands illegal china ignored that judgment and instead armed these islands with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems and if that wasn't scary enough the chinese government has also invested heavily in radar and signal intelligence equipment so it's safe to say that china can see everything moving in or above the south china sea beijing says its military profile over the spratly islands is purely defensive but it's difficult to believe that when all their artificial islands are kitted out with offensive weaponry considering how important this stretch of ocean is to the world's trade and energy resources china's extensive military presence on these islands is making other world powers seriously uneasy tensions are rising in the south china sea the results of which could determine the entire world's future china's ultimate goals in building these artificial islands is terrifying to consider they could either claim sole ownership to world-changing amounts of power or turn this stretch of ocean into a battleground if other countries felt the need to retaliate but china hasn't just used its dredging abilities to create problem islands out in the middle of the ocean a little closer to home they've dredged up ocean flower island also known as the dubai of china being the world's largest man-made tourist island early signs of dredging and construction began all the way back in 2012 and by 2014 the main flower island had begun to take shape but it wouldn't be until 2020 that it would be completed with the main mass flanked by two connecting leaf-shaped islands in total it covers 1980 acres making it one and a half times bigger than the palm jumeirah and the developers certainly got what they paid for as it cost them a whopping 25 billion dollars to dredge up but its funding and finances aren't all that straightforward the project was originally approved by zhang ki a local politician later convicted of corruption for overruling environmental laws and now the island developers are struggling to pay an estimated 300 billion dollars back in fines that's more than elon musk's entire net worth well between the military mounds and financial failures that china's built out in the ocean which do you think is the most controversial let me know in the comments down below coral quarrel now aside from losing bank-breaking amounts of money and risking an all-out war over their development the creations of some artificial islands can also come at a terrible cost to the environment given the current climate crisis this really isn't something the world can afford to handle and definitely not on this scale you see the underwater coral reefs in china built the majority of its artificial islands on top of have been completely annihilated in the process you may think these artificial islands were only made of sand and concrete but really these islands have a make up more akin to a crab stick that's because when the dredger ships were collecting material from the seabed they didn't just vacuum up sand but everything along the seafloor all the crabs lobsters anemones starfish and coral was sucked up too ground into paste and dumped onto the island to build it up the chinese government claims it has begun restoring the natural reefs it is destroyed but it's pretty difficult to restore something when you've already whipped it round in a blender and smothered it with concrete where there was once incredible biodiversity surrounding these coral reefs there are now dead zones as dredging the seabed wiped out everything living around them now all that resides on these artificial islands are chinese soldiers and crabgos but china's sea tirade gets much darker and murkier than that anyone who's looked at the news recently will know that relations between china and taiwan are let's say strained at the best to put pressure on this even further china has started to send its 4 000 strong fleet of sand dredgers into taiwan's territory to scoop up sand for its own construction projects it may not sound like an all-out offensive but this illegal trespassing puts pressure on taiwan's naval forces and is a tactic known as greyzone warfare on five occasions in 2020 the dredgers also damaged undersea communication cables between the taiwanese islands of nangang and juguang disrupting mobile and internet service to thousands of residents the needling assault is putting a lot of pressure on taiwan who have started retaliating by firing water cannons at illegal dredging ships and attempt to damage the ships and even sink them if this escalation continues it's possible the two might engage in a war over sand doesn't it seem exactly like the most noble reason to go to war sounds downright dumb if you ask me meanwhile the artificial islands along the coastline of dubai are causing the country's trademark beaches to literally disappear typically dubai's beaches lose between three hundred and fifty thousand and five hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet of sand each year to tides and natural erosion however the palm jumeiris construction has altered the natural flow of the tides and coastal went rapidly increasing the rate of erosion not only that but as the shoreline encroaches beachfront buildings could turn into aquariums as they're flooded by the ocean tides as it stands the current coastline has been irregularly eroded over the last 20 years all thanks to the palm jumeirah's construction perhaps this is nature's revenge for the damage the artificial islands caused a local marine biodiversity yeah it's not just china's islands that have had an impact on marine life the process of dubai's extensive land reclamation scattered silt into the water burying coral reefs oyster beds and sea grass and a two inch thick layer of sediment these organisms play a vital role in the local ecosystem protecting coastal regions from storms and preventing beach erosion meaning with them buried under artificial islands dubai's beaches are now disappearing faster than ever in response to this the developers have begun plans to create artificial reefs though the developers may need to google what a reef is as they plan to sink two f-86 fighter jets onto the ocean floor in hopes that coral will grow over them and marine life will make them their home these jets will construct an artificial reef alongside an airbus passenger plane and a london bus the developers hope that these sunken objects will be as attractive to marine life as they are to tourists with corals and deep sea planes using them as a stable foundation to grow on hopefully the fish will be intrigued enough to stay for the long term because the return of coral reefs may be the only way to save dubai's beaches from eroding any further now that would certainly ruin those multi-million dollar views but that's far from their only problem sinking feeling you know that old saying that goes houses built on sand never last well it turns out the same goes for artificial islands though they may appear solid from the outside china's islands of sands are starting to crumble that's because despite these militarized artificial islands boasting near 10 000 feet runways no fighter jet planes have landed on them in five years why build an airstrip and never land a plane seems suspicious right well that's because the islands may be sinking though the chinese government strongly denies these claims rumors suggest that the island foundations are turning to sponge in the hot humid conditions of the south china sea and that's before the islands are even put to the test in the extreme conditions of a direct hit from a super typhoon which the area is occasionally prone to china tried to game international law by building islands where none existed before but there were reasons for that as the natural conditions of the south china sea are not hospitable to island formation and now the ocean is taking back its real estate so other world powers can rest assured china's claims to the south china sea are sinking where they stand but china's islands aren't the only ones that are falling back into the ocean as early as 2010 the company penguin marine warned developers that the dubai archipelago was sinking back into the sea the developers denied these claims stating that the island was naturally settling its position on the seabed however it turns out that settling is just fancy pr span for sinking because the islands are undeniably going under photographs taken from the international space station in 2010 showed evidence that the waters of the persian gulf were rising and the islands were starting to disappear you've probably heard by now that sea levels around the world are rising due to the world's current climate crisis ice sheets and glaciers are melting causing ice water to rush into the ocean while the ocean itself is expanding due to the absorption of excess heat as a result the ocean is rising by 3.6
millimeters per year and is expected to rise by more than a foot by 2050 meanwhile nasa has calculated that all dubai's man-made islands are sinking at a rate of 5 millimeters per year combined with rising sea levels the palm jumeirah and the world islands are being submerged at a rate of 8.6 millimeters every year i know that may seem like a small amount but it doesn't take much of a height difference for these islands to become uninhabitable you see the previously mentioned wave breakers that surround the island stand at 9.8 feet tall but the highest ever recorded wave to hit dubai's shores was 11 feet tall by 2050 the palm jumeirah and world islands will have sunk by roughly 1.46
feet making these wave breakers useless when it comes to defending the island from large tidal waves causing the palm jumeirah to eventually wash away altogether so even if you did win the lottery it'd be wiser to invest in property elsewhere as the dubai's artificial island days are definitely numbered i mean its entire coast is soon set to become a real-life atlantis overall it seems that just creating real estate opportunities is a stupid dangerous and over-expensive reason to build an island given that they'll be at the bottom of the ocean in the not so distant future well at least spongebob and his buddies will soon have a lot of new luxury property options which facts about these artificial islands shocked you the most let me know down in the comments and thanks for watching
2022-08-14