The effects of urbanisation on coastal habitats and the potential for ecological engineering: A Singapore case study

Historical and contemporary cultural ecosystem service values in the rapidly urbanizing city state of Singapore

“…Mangrove covered much of Singapore's coast historically, though has experienced a severe decline in areal extent due to a number of anthropogenic stressors. Singapore is a small, densely populated island, so land reclamation to allow increasing urban development has been a leading cause of mangrove decline since Singapore's independence (Lai et al 2015; Fig. 1).…”

“…1), in line with an increase in population from 5.47 million today to potentially 6.90 million by 2030. If realized, this scale of land reclamation may result in the loss of another 33 % of Singapore's current mangrove area (Lai et al 2015), further limiting public access to just a few designated parks, where interpersonal cultural ecosystem services such as recreation will dominate. Sites in this study such as Chek Jawa have been slated for reclamation previously and continue to face the risk of reclamation over the medium term (URA 2013).…”

Coral Reef Restoration in Singapore — Past, Present and Future

“…from 581.5 km 2 in the 1960s to 719.2 km 2 in 2016 (Tun, 2012;Singapore Department of Statistics, 2017). Seawalls currently line almost two-thirds of the country's coastlines (Lai et al, 2015). Based on projections by the Singapore government, land area is expected to increase to 766 km 2 by the year 2030 (Ministry of National Development, 2013).…”

Rehabilitation of Coral Reefs Exposed to Urbanization and Climate Change Impacts

“…Active restoration enhanced the biodiversity of this zone of the seawall [17] . Seawalls line more than 60 percent of Singapore"s coastline [18] and offer a huge potential as alternative areas for coral community development. The potential can be enhanced by increasing the surface complexity of seawalls [19] .…”