Why Should Humanity Begin to Build Water Cities?

Witten by Ljiljana Grudenic

Future cities on water was a historical theory concept that is becoming a reality today. Why do we need to build water cities? Humanity already has a city undergoing flooding water problem - Venice. “Venice is sinking because it is surrounded by water, and too much weight from buildings has caused the ground it sits on the lower. With increasing global temperatures, sea levels rising also impacts the city greatly. Plate tectonics are also to blame for Venice's sinking.” (Google, 2023).

Venice is a good example on how to experiment a city with flooding and under water problems. The infrastructure, farming and the transportation are the main factors humanity must consider to sustain humanity during these changes. Throughout the world, there are some countries already building structures to float on water. For example, the floating Uris islands in Lake Titicaca in Peru, floating villages in Cambodia and floating homes in the UK. The Netherlands also has long experience of floating homes building canal boats and barges, recently it has moved towards larger floating buildings. Another modern structure Burj Al-Arab is located in Dubai and is a sail-shaped hotel built on an artificial island in the Arabian Gulf. It is the third tallest hotel in the world. It rises above sea level by about 321 meters.

Another important factor to consider, Earth has always been covered with more water than land. Our planet Earth covers about 71% of water leaving only less than 30% of land surface. In addition, an estimate of 97% of the earth's water is found in the oceans which is too salty to drink, growing crops, and most industrial uses except cooling leaving only 3% of the earth's water is fresh (Williams, 2014).

Humanity must educate themselves on new challenges today so we can become new advance sustainable cities for the future. Our future must consider building new floating city structures and using sustainable cities to increase space for future human population. Our future will depend on new sustainable architectural designs and science concepts to live off future floating AI cities. Therefore, future education must change and educate our students with real demands on current issues. Otherwise, our growth will become concerning. In conclusion, our future depends on new concepts and reflecting on futuristic goals. These include how to adapt to Nature, building floating Earth cities and living on multiple planets.