Recently the scientists have proposed the construction of two dams of a combined length of 637 km — the first between northern Scotland and western Norway (476 km); the second between France and south western England(161 km)
Key highlights about the Dam
- The proposed dam would to protect 25 million people and important economic regions of 15 Northern European countries from rising seas as a result of climate change
- The scientists mentioned that separating the North and Baltic Seas from the Atlantic Ocean may be the “most viable option” to protect Northern Europe against unstoppable sea level rise (SLR).
The Rational
- NEED project would could be “potentially favourable” financially and in scale when compared with alternative solutions to fight SLR, the proposed paper argues
- The researchers classify the solutions to SLR into three categories of taking no action, protection, and managed retreat and submit that NEED is in the second category.While managed retreat, which includes options such as managed migrations, may be less expensive than protection (NEED), it involves intangible costs such as national and international political instability, psychological difficulties, and loss of culture and heritage for migrants.
- NEED, the paper says, will have the least direct impact on people’s daily lives, can be built at a “reasonable cost”, and has the largest potential to be implemented with the required urgency to be effective.
Viability of the project
The researchers have estimated the total costs associated with NEED at between €250 billion and €550 billion. If construction is spread over a 20-year period, this will work out to an annual expense of around 0.07%-0.16% of the GDP of the 15 Northern European countries that will be involved.
