Making future floating cities sustainable: a way forward

Abstract

It is expected that by 2030, 5 billion of the earth's population will live in cities. This growth in urbanisation results in significant challenges pertaining to environmental and social sustainability. Most of the cities are located near coastal areas and thus under the threat of sea rise. This paper explores sustainable floating cities with the key sustainable factors as an alternative to meet the requirement of future urbanisation. The purpose of this paper was to find the key sustainability factors and then explore the solutions to achieve them in the sustainable floating cities. A mixed research strategy using qualitative and quantitative approaches was adopted to achieve the aims of this research. The key sustainability factors were derived from the existing literature using a systematic review approach and then ranked using a questionnaire administrated among selected respondents. The top-ranked factors that include energy, water, food, waste, mobility and habitat regeneration were considered and were further explored using a systematic review method. The review suggests that there are different arrangements and techniques available to meet the requirement of future sustainable floating cities. The discussion reveals that the concept of floating cities is at its initial stage and has the potential for multidisciplinary research.