Editing IPCC:AR6/SROCC/Chapter-4 (section)

===== 4.4.2.4.1 Observed advance across geographies =====

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Advance has a long history in most areas where there are dense coastal populations and a shortage of land ( ''very high confidence'' ). This includes land reclamation through polders around the southern North Sea (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and England) and China (Wang et al., 2014), which coincides with regions where there is extensive hard protection in place (Section 4.4.2.4). Land reclamation has also taken place in all major coastal cities to some degree, even if only for the creation of port and harbour areas by raising coastal flats above normal tidal levels through sediment infill. On some steep coasts, where there is little flat land, such as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, material from elevated areas has been excavated to create fill material to build land out into the sea.

Globally, it is estimated that about 33,700 km <sup>2</sup> of land has been gained from the sea during the last 30 years (about 50% more than has been lost), with the biggest gains being due to land reclamation in places like Dubai, Singapore and China (Wang et al., 2014; Donchyts et al., 2016). In Shanghai alone, 590 km <sup>2</sup> land has been reclaimed during the same period (Sengupta et al., 2018). In Lagos, 25 km² of new land is currently being reclaimed (www.ekoatlantic.com). Land reclamation is also popular in some small island settings. The Maldives has recently increased the land area of their capital region by constructing a new island called Hulhumalé, which has been built 60 cm higher than the normal island elevation of 1.5 m, in order to take into account future SLR (Hinkel et al., 2018).

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