Edited by Associate Professor Fadi Masoud, Terra-Sorta-Firma: Reclaiming the Littoral Gradient documents the global extent of reclaimed coastal lands and provides a framework for comparison across varying geographies, cultures and histories. For centuries, cities have grown and expanded onto previously saturated grounds, “reclaiming” land from estuaries, marshes, mangroves and seabeds. While these artificial coastlines are sites of tremendous real estate, civic and infrastructural investments, they are also the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

With a foreword by Brent D. Ryan and contributions by Vince Beiser (Wired/The New York Times/The World in A Grain of Sand), Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck (Atelier NL), Xiaoxuan Lu (University of Hong Kong), Adam Grydehøj (Island Dynamics), Ben Mendelson (University of Pennsylvania), Kian Goh (UCLA), Luna Khirfan (University of Waterloo) and Michael T. Wilson (RAND).

Terra-Sorta-Firma is available for purchase via Actar Publishers or check it out in the Eberhard Zeidler Library.

Additional Resources

• The Littoral Gradient Atlas
• Urban Districts on Reclaimed Land
• Reclaiming the Littoral Gradient [video]