Construction of artificial islands has a long history in the world. Thus, in 1634 in Japan an artificial island Dejima was created. This island was a sea port for Dutch merchant ships. Since then a few dozens of islands have been built in the world for diverse purposes – to locate sea ports, airports, to hold Olympic Games, for residential properties etc.
The major projects resulted in construction of the following artificial islands, which appeared on the world map:
1. Bahrain
Durrat Al Bahrain Island, same as similar projects, e.g. Palm Islands in Dubai.
This project costs 1,2 bln USD and implies building an archipelago of 13 artificial islands located on the area of 20 mln. m2. It will include 6 atolls (islands with coral lagoons), five islands of fish shapes, an island-halfmoon where five-star hotels, golf field for 18 holes, 12 bridges and marine will be located.
2. Canada
Island Notre-Dame (Île Notre-Dame) was built during 10 months of 15 million tons of rock mass mined at construction of Montreal metro in 1965. The island was built to accommodate Expo-67 global exhibition to celebrate centenary of Canada. The island is located in the middle of the St. Lawrence river.
3. Hong Kong
In Hong Kong an international airport is located on the artificial island Chek Lap Kok. Two existing islands were connected and they made 25% of the total airport platform with an area of 12,55 km2. As a result, reclaimed territory was about 1% of the land of the whole Hong Kong territory
4. Macao
In Macao on an artificial island there is also an airport for 24 parking places for airplanes with 4 passage modules from airplanes into the airport building.
5. Denmark
During construction of giant bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden an artificial island Peberholm (“Pepper Island”) was created which is located in the Dutch part of the Oresun strait. This island is a part of the total structure and is a transit territory for the vehicles coming out from the underwater tunnel onto the bridge. This island was built next to a small natural island Saltholm (“Salt Island”) and named as an addition to the existing one.
Besides, in the Oresun strait between Copenhagen and Malino an island Saltholmreb was built to locate Flakfortet fortress on it. It was built in 1910-1915. In 2001 this island was sold to the Swedish company “Malmekranen”.
6. Japan
Chubu island. The Chubu airport was built on an artificial island to the south of Nagoya in the Central Japan in Ise bay next to Tokoname city. This airport is rated to be the first-class airport and is the main international gate into the central region of Japan. It is the second Japanese airport built on the artificial island. In total 5 airports in Japan were built in the sea including Kobe airport and new Kitakyushu airport.
The construction of the Chubu airport was started in August 2000, the budget was 7,3 bln USD.
During this island construction there was considered the experience of environmental activities performed at construction of Kansai international airport on the artificial island. Chubu island was built in the form of letter “D” for better circulation of the sea water. The banks of the island were partly made with natural rock mass and the slopes were made in such a way as to make it possible for the colonies of marine organisms to settle there.
Dream Island. It is an artificial island in Tokyo bay fully built of wastes. The construction started at the end of 1960-s (according to some reports it started at the end of 1950-s or even beginning of 1970-s) by Tokyo Municipal Authorities and was a potential solution of the wastes management in Tokyo.
Nowadays on the island there is a sports park (with baseball and football fields and sports hall), a tropical greenhouse, a memorial museum of Fukuryu Maru ship, a big yacht marina and facilities for wastes storage and utilization. There is Yumenoshima stadium on the island.
Artificial island for Kansai international airport. It is located in the center of Osaka bay, on the sea shelf of Sennan, Izumisano, Tairi cities in Osaka prefecture. The artificial island is 4km long and 2.5km wide. It was a suggestion of the engineers to create an island like this in order to avoid problems caused by high risks of earthquakes and typhoons (when storm waves are more than 3m high). The construction was started in 1987. A breakwater was completed by 1989 (made of 48,000 concrete tetrapods). For the territory reclamation the material from 3 mountains was used with the total volume of 21 mln. m3. 3 years of construction required 10000 workers and 10 mln. man-hours, 80 vessels for reclamation of the territory 30 meters high on the sea bottom and behind the breakwater. This project was the most expensive construction project in the modern history and required 20 years of planning, 3 years of construction and 20 bullion dollars of investments for the island reclamation and airport construction. This experience helped to build artificial islands on silty sea bottoms for the new Kitakyushu airport, Kobe and Chubu airports and besides was used for the airport in Hong Kong. Kansai airport on the artificial island stood a destructive earthquake in 1995 in Kobe and an extremely powerful typhoon in 1998. In 2001 the American Association of Construction Engineers awarded Kansai airport with the prize “The Monument of Civil Construction of Millennium”.
Port Island. It is an artificial island in Kobe. The island area is 434 hectares.
It was built in 1966-1981 in Kobe port and officially opened during Port Pier'81 exhibition. On the island there is a helicopter airport, various hotels, universities, the museum of coffee, IKEA hypermarket, a few parks and piers for passenger and cargo vessels.
Rokko Island. This is the second biggest artificial island in Kobe. The island of a rectangular form was constructed in 1973-1992, the dimensions are 3.4 by 2 km, the island area is 5.8 km2. Hotels, sports facilities, commercial enterprises, an aqua park, residential areas next to the sea, the museum of fashion, educational institutions, container platforms, harbors and port facilities are located on the island.
7. The Netherlands
Historically, Holland is notable for the especially large-scale construction of artificial territories. In such a way even a new administrative district of Holland appeared. Firstly, in order to reclaim a territory, the inland sea was separated from the outer Northern sea, and then during 1932-1968 three artificial islands were built in the appeared lake. All together they made a new province – Flevoland.
Another major reclaimed territory is the one for city Eiburg which became Amsterdam territory extension. The city was built on the artificial islands created in Ei lake. In total 6 islands were made. In future it is planned to add 4 islands more. When construction is completed the islands will have 18,000 housing estates for 45,000 people and 12,000 people will be employed.
8. Qatar
The countries of the Persian Gulf continue active construction of artificial islands. One of such projects is “Qatar Pearl” being built in Doha, Qatar. The island is located 350 meters away from the coast in the region of the Western lagoon. The area of this artificial territory is 4 mln. m2. When finished it will be the first territory in Qatar provided to the foreigners for the property. By 2010 it is planned to have 15,000 lodgements.
9. Singapore
This country of South-Eastern Asia constructs Jurong island made as combination of seven main Singapore islands. The territory joining was made by means of reclamation using sand delivered by sea. Upon the project completion Jurong island will have a territory of 32 km2 made of the existing territory of less than 10 km2.
10. United Arab Emirates.
In the United Arab Emirates the islands are built within the project “Palm Islands”. These are the biggest project of reclamation in the world. They are called Palm Jumeira (25 km2) , Palm Jebel Ali (37 km2) and Palm Deira (72 km2). By making new island territories Dubai will get 520km of new beaches. The islands will have an infrastructure of accommodation, recreation and entertainment.
The first two islands will consist of approximately 100 mln. m3 of rock mass and sand. Reclamation of Palm Deira island requires about 1 bln. m3 of such material. The developer, Nakheel company, states that the island area will exceed Paris area. The construction is planned to be completed by 2018.
One more island project in the United Arab Emirates is the “World” archipelago (6 õ 9 km) consisting of 300 small islands (with an area of 1.4 – 4.2 hectares) looking similar to the world map. The archipelago is located 4 km away from Dubai coast. In total 232 km of coastline have been created. The project costs around 14 bln. USD. Single islands cost ranges from 15 to 50 mln. USD.
11. USA
In the USA in Florida (Miami) there were constructed Venice islands that are a chain of six artificial islands connected by dams and bridges. Except one of them used only for country recreation in nature, all the islands are provided with the tourism industry facilities.
