Important Facts For Prelims
Northern European Enclosure Dam
- 19 Feb 2020
- 1 min read
Why in News
Scientists have proposed the construction of the Northern European Enclosure Dam (NEED) enclosing all of the North Sea to protect economic regions of 15 Northern European countries from Sea-level Rise (SLR) as a result of climate change.
Key Points
- The proposed NEED aims to construct two dams of a combined length of 637 km.
- The first between northern Scotland and western Norway (476 km) and the second between France and southwestern England (161 km).
- The project intends to separate the North and Baltic Seas from the Atlantic Ocean to protect Northern Europe against SLR.
- The project classifies the solutions to SLR into three categories namely, taking no action, protection, and managed retreat — and categorises NEED into the second category.
- NEED is expected to have the least direct impact on people’s daily lives and can be built at a reasonable cost.
- It can be implemented in other regions in the world including the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Red Sea.
