ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Reclamation can give us more land and make life easier, but it can have very negative effects on the environment.
Reclamation is very disturbing to marine animals. When we "reclaim" land, it destroys the habitats of animals that live along the shoreline, such as seals and ducks. When they have no habitat, they will eventually die out, which is not very good for our environment.
Do you remember the method of reclamation? It is to pump up water, make a base of large rocks and fill with clay. If we reclaim land, the water that was once there will perish. The reclaimed land areas will have trouble finding fresh water, which is happening in some areas of Singapore.
Another problem with reclamation is that it wastes our resources, particularly rocks and minerals. Even just one square km of land uses a lot of clay and rocks, such as granite. Soon enough, if we keep reclaiming, our resources will deplete.
There are many more ways that reclamation harms our environment. Due to the harm, it is now illegal in most places in the world to reclaim land. This includes all reclamation projects that have not begun yet. The projects that have begun are allowed to finish, but the rest are not allowed to begin.