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Are you interested in floating cities and communities?
Our debate today works with the article titled Potential of floating urban development for coastal cities: Analysis of flood risk and population growth from 2019, by B. Dal Bo Zanon, B. Roeffen, K. M. Czapiewska & R. E. de Graaf-van Dinther, published in the WCFS2019 Proceedings of the World Conference on Floating Solutions.
This is a great preparation to our next interview with Rutger de Graaf in episode 384 talking about floating cities and communities.
Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how floating cities can enhance opportunities for coastal cities. This article proposes a multi-criteria analysis to identify best locations for floating cities and implementation strategies.
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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today we will introduce a research by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original investigation, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole documentation. This conversation was produced and generated with Notebook LM as two hosts dissecting the whole research.
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Speaker 1: we are diving today into a really challenging calculus. We’re looking at how to implement major infrastructural solutions that are designed to tackle two global crises at once, climate vulnerability, and land scarcity. Our focus is on floating urban development or fud, which is emerging as a critical strategy for these vulnerable coastal port cities.
Speaker 2: The critical context here is that the source material gives us this really rigorous global analysis. It establishes objective criteria to identify exactly where FUD could provide the greatest benefit. So the analysis pinpoints the cities that most urgently need these solutions based on tricks like population growth and flood risk.
Speaker 1: And that quantitative mapping brings us to our central question is the proposed strategy for implementing fud. Which prioritizes initial large scale testing in places with high maritime expertise like the Netherlands, but a lower objective, urgent need is that the most effective path forward?
Speaker 2: And I’m going to argue that the resources for implementation should be focused immediately on the cities that the analysis identified as having the greatest need. We have to align our actions with the data we have.
Speaker 1: And I’ll be arguing that the proposed two stage strategy. Starting with those expert testing grounds is the necessary and frankly, pragmatic pathway to ensure these complex systems are robust enough for global success. So floating developments are essential because they tackle these long-term integrated problems, FUD projects. They adapt autonomously to rising water levels, which is a powerful adaptation. But crucially, they also address the crisis of land scarcity. The research estimates a shortage of what, maybe up to 36 million square kilometres by 2050. To deal with that scale. The research sets up a logical sort of risk averse strategy. First, you perfect the concepts in front runner regions where the expertise is proven, and then you apply that model to the areas with the greatest potential benefit.
Speaker 2: But that introduces a fundamental timing paradox, doesn’t it? The Netherlands, while yes, it’s a global front runner, you’ve got the floating pavilion and Rotterdam and so on. It doesn’t even make the top 25 list of cities ranked by calculated need. The top of that list is defined by cities facing an imminent quantifiable crisis.
Speaker 1: The existing expertise isn’t a counterpoint to the strategy, it’s the foundation of it. That first stage ensures the successful development of incredibly complex projects. Take the conceptual Blue Revolution North Sea Project. This is not just a floating platform. It integrates the innovation agendas of nine specific Dutch top sectors. We’re talking collaboration across civil engineering, water, energy, it biotechnology. This step makes sure the tech is a hundred percent CO2 neutral, fully circular before it gets exported. If we apply half tested technology in these high risk environments, any failure would be catastrophic. It would set the entire global FUD movement back for decades.
Speaker 2: I absolutely understand the focus on risk mitigation, but my concern is the profound disconnect between where the data says the crisis is worst, and where the bulk of the initial resources are being focused. The study wasn’t subjective. It used a rigorous multi-criteria analysis employing statistical tools like Z-Score, and for anyone not steeped in statistics, z-score are essential here. They measure how far a data point is from the average. So the analysis was intentionally designed to preserve and highlight the extremes. The extremes of need and
Speaker 1: the methodology did yield important results
Speaker 2: precisely. And Nat ranking clearly places Asian and African coastal cities at the absolute apex of the urgency list. Huang Z China’s number one with a combined score of 11.36. Mumbai is second at 7.31, and Lagos. Nigeria is third at 5.25. Asia alone accounts for 64% of the highest potential benefit areas. That immense gap between Guang Zoo score that 11.36 and any other city, it just underscores an extreme vulnerability that I think demands immediate attention. Focusing these extensive resources on a relatively stable delta area like the Netherlands, which is already highly adapted, it fundamentally shifts the goal away from global necessity and more toward localized technologically comfortable development.
Speaker 1: We have to unpack that score, though, that 11.36 and the complexity of the solution that’s required, you frame the priority as immediate need, but FUD is designed to solve complex integrated challenges, not just build emergency flood barriers. The scale of the threat, especially for landmass, it necessitates a systemic response. The expertise and receptivity in the Netherlands are non-negotiable prerequisites because the concepts we are developing, like the circular metabolism of the Blue Revolution. Are just systemically challenging.
Speaker 2: Okay. Tell me more about why
Speaker 1: that complexity must be solved by the Netherlands. First, we’ll look at the sheer ambition. The Blue Revolution plan is designed to be fully circular. It integrates functions like energy islands, aquatic biomass production, smart city logistics, this integrated approach. It creates a circular metabolism where the floating structure uses waste products. Industrial, CO2 wastewater waste heat from the land-based cities for productive uses, growing biomass, heating the structure to make sure that complex technological symbiosis actually works across engineering, biotech and it. You need a highly regulated, sophisticated living lab environment like the Netherlands. You have to mitigate systemic risks before you try to deploy this at mass scale. It’s just responsible engineering.
Speaker 2: I understand the goal of a perfect circular system, but the material itself frames FUD as an alternative solution for land-based urban expansion, and cities like Guango and Mumbai are struggling with these limits now. They’re dealing with explosive population growth and rapidly rising flood loss estimation. By prioritizing this methodical, multi-decade of elements of a perfect model in the Netherlands, we are delaying the application of any floating capacity in those high needs cities. The crisis doesn’t wait for the technology to be flawless, but that delay is precisely
Speaker 1: what protects the viability of the solution globally. If the first major deployed system fails. The perception of FUD as a reliable solution will just collapse everywhere, including in the cities that need it most. This integrated approach lets us create a functional system that can sustain a major population linking it to the mainland in a sustainable way. This foundational proof is essential before you attempt to install it in an environment with inherently higher operational risk and frankly greater vulnerability.
Speaker 2: That argument brings up a critical methodological tension. It really centres on transferability. The analysis that generated the top 25 list was based on objective need, flood risk, population growth. The study authors themselves acknowledged that if they had included different criteria like local maritime readiness or existing FUD expertise, they would’ve produced a completely different list.
Speaker 1: Of course, but that’s how any MCA works, it’s an exploratory tool.
Speaker 2: Exactly. The critical issue is that since the criteria they used did not include local readiness, prioritizing the Netherlands introduces a severe bias, A bias toward one specific context, one with exceptional policy stability and vast investment infrastructure from those top sectors you mentioned. So the question becomes, how easily can a system whose design is driven by the innovation agendas of nine Dutch economic sectors be applied relevantly to a structurally different city like Lagos or daca?
Speaker 1: The transferability is the whole point of the two stated process. The MCA findings are exploratory. They require technological substantiation. The Blue Revolution North Sea concept is explicitly designed to be a high integration platform, a model that can integrate civil engineering, biotech energy tech, to be an adaptable blueprint for delta areas worldwide implementing it where success is most assured. Just increases the chance of creating a replicable high impact blueprint. To do that, you have to leverage existing expertise. When I mention the nine top sectors, what I’m really talking about is a government-backed structured collaboration. It guarantees the regulatory environment, the investment, the cross-disciplinary skill you need that just doesn’t exist in the same concentration in Guango,
Speaker 2: but we have to stay anchored to the data. The methodologies use of csco was intended to highlight those extremes of need. By definition, the cities at the top represent the acute crisis areas. We have to be exceedingly cautious not to substitute a localized policy driven icon project, no matter how impressive it is for direct relief in the areas that are quantified as having the greatest urgency. If the ultimate goal is global adaptation, then focusing on hyper complex local integration in a low risk environment creates an unacceptable delay.
Speaker 1: Let’s talk about the necessity of scale. This ties directly into why this complexity is mandatory. The Dutch case study is focused on developing mega scale concepts. We’re talking about a floating city designed for a million inhabitants or a floating airport expansion. Achieving that scale requires huge foundational investment in high tech research, testing, light, corrosion, proof nano materials, implementing advanced smart grids. These are all critical elements.
Speaker 2: I understand the ambition to solve the entire problem in one perfect structure,
Speaker 1: but that is necessary to solve the land scarcity issue. If FUD is only capable of delivering small, non-integrated platforms, it fails to address the fundamental need for millions of square kilometres of space. The integration required, they’re testing high speed vacuum tube transport between the floating city and Amsterdam. It shows the level of systemic integration you need to make these projects functional extensions of existing cities, and that requires the confidence and capacity that only front runners can provide at the start.
Speaker 2: This focus on the perfect mega project, though the fully integrated CO2 neutral city, it concerns me it might be the enemy of the good. Are we overlooking more immediate, scalable, maybe more localized floating solutions? That could be deployed rapidly in high need, less resource cities, perhaps simpler, prefabricated, floating infrastructure could immediately alleviate risk in Guang, JAO, or Lagos, even if it doesn’t achieve a hundred percent circular metabolism right away.
Speaker 1: I’m not convinced by that line of reasoning because the material dictates fud must address multiple challenges, not just localized flood risk. Deploying fragmented smaller solutions risks, creating these non-sustainable isolated islands that ultimately burden the land-based city, which fails to address the long-term problems. To achieve a comprehensive circular urban metabolism at the city level, you fundamentally need that large scale planning that links the floating systems to the land-based waste streams productively.
Speaker 2: So we just accept that the perfect model the Netherlands is working toward. Imposes a necessary delay on the city’s facing immediate catastrophic risk.
Speaker 1: We accept that a necessary responsible delay is required to ensure that the eventual solutions are sustainable, robust, and capable of addressing the full spectrum of challenges. It ensures long-term success rather than short-term fragmented failure,
Speaker 2: and that is precisely the point of divergence. We’re debating the immediate moral obligation defined by the data. Versus the long-term technological ideal.
Speaker 1: To summarize my position, then while the objective vulnerability data clearly highlights urgent need in Asia and Africa, the successful development of robust, complex, and truly sustainable solutions like the Blue Revolution concept, it requires prioritizing areas with existing technical expertise in a receptive environment like the Netherlands, this phased approach is the only way to create a successful transferrable global model.
Speaker 2: My position is that the analytical criteria, the flood risk, the population growth quantified using Z-score, clearly defined the global priorities, guang, ju, Mumbai, Lagos. The core challenge for the FUD community is not just building a perfect model, but ensuring that the ambitious designs being developed by front runners are quickly adapted and deployed in the areas of greatest calculated benefit before those crisis points are reached and catastrophic losses become unavoidable.
Speaker 1: This inherent tension. Between global necessity and implementation feasibility, it remains absolutely central to the future of floating urban development.
Speaker 2: Weighing weather, proactive, technologically complex development in stable areas, or the immediate deployment of solutions in the most vulnerable areas offers the best path forward. That is a judgment we must all consider as we map the future of our coastal cities.
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