Scientist Proposes Gibraltar Dam to Combat Rising Sea Levels

A 32 km construction between the tip of Spain and Morocco, in an arc of a circle, to avoid the maximum depths of 800 m. Alexandre Meinesz is taking up this idea of the German Herman Sörgel dating back to the 1920s. The infrastructure will include huge concrete blocks, up to 300 m deep, with hollow caissons straddling to allow water to pass through, a highway and a railway line to connect the two continents, locks to allow ships to pass and hydroelectric turbines, details Midi Libre.

"It’s a bit of a utopian idea but when you compare what the rise in water levels of one meter and the construction of the dam are going to cost, we’re talking about a ratio of one to three. [...] This dam would lower the sea by twenty centimeters," the marine biologist, Alexandre Meinesz, tries to convince. "There is a series of time bombs coming like the thawing of the permafrost that will release methane 60 times more powerful than CO2. The sea will rise much faster than expected and for me this is the worst consequence of global warming for coastal regions. This will lead to the construction of dikes, groynes, the rise of quays in all ports and estuaries with astronomical costs," he argues.

For the researcher, the realization of this dam calls for a common will of all the riparian states to co-finance it. He estimates that the ten years of work and concreting at sea are not comparable to the dam. "But 32 km of concrete, it’s not comparable to the 4,700 km of coast to be artificialize," he says.