The Maldives might appear like a pristine haven, but its clear water masks the engineering required to give much-needed resilience to this fragile landscape.
An archipelago of almost 1,200 islands, over 80 percent of the Maldives is less than 1 metre above sea level, leaving it exceptionally vulnerable to both storms today and climate change tomorrow, including rising sea levels and storm surges.
Lagoon 19 in the Maldives is a new development and involves the reclamation of four islands located within the North Male Atoll. The project includes the development of coastal protection structures including beaches, groynes, harbours and breakwaters.
Moffatt & Nichol was commissioned to review and assess the erosion and flood risk and support in the development of engineering and management approaches to manage this risk proportionately.
The work included the analysis of wind, wave and storm surge data to derive future extreme values, leading to the development of numerical wave models to identify design criteria on and next to the development.
With the understanding of the environmental criteria, we used a variety of engineering design techniques to ensure the beach and coastal risk management proposals were both robust and appropriate for the location. This work was undertaken while working within the constraints of the development’s masterplan and the ocean floor, which in areas dropped to 100 metres below sea level.
From these criteria, our team peer reviewed the outline design for breakwaters and groynes, as well as beach management, to ensure the scheme was robust enough to provide adequate protection to the development and manage the risk of erosion and flooding.
