It began in the Caribbean Sea. Jaime Ascencio, then a enterprise growth engineer working throughout Latin America, was keen to search out sustainable methods to fight the coastal erosion that was consuming away on the area’s treasured seashores—and threatening the tourism {dollars} introduced in by its seaside resorts. “If there is no sand, there are no guests,” he says. But Ascensio, who knew that synthetic reefs might make for pure breakwaters, might solely discover options that had been neither sustainable nor secure sufficient to withstand the pressure of the waves. So he went on to get a grasp’s in coastal engineering on the celebrated Delft University of Technology within the Netherlands—and developed one himself.

After greater than 5 years of analysis and growth, the fruits of his labor had been simply submerged within the Maas river, simply outdoors of Rotterdam, the Netherlands: 17 blocks, six tons every and made from low-carbon concrete, are actually stacked on the river flooring. The ensuing construction—82 ft lengthy and nearly 10 ft excessive—makes up Rotterdam’s first dwelling breakwater, a man-made reef that may restore marine biodiversity and double as a extra sustainable wave barrier in opposition to the turbulence attributable to the tens of 1000’s of ships that sail out and in of Europe’s largest port yearly.

Officially known as a Reef Enhancing Breakwater, the underwater construction is the primary undertaking of Reefy, a startup Ascensio cofounded with Leon Haines, a marine biologist who has spent 5 years engaged on coral reef restoration initiatives in Thailand, the Maldives, and Indonesia. Next up on Reefy’s record are related initiatives in Mexico and the Southeast coast of the United States (which is already a veritable playground for synthetic reefs).

In some ways, the underlying precept behind the startup—that rewilding the ocean can defend the shoreline—already exists in nature. All over the world, coral reefs act as a pure buffer, defending coastal areas from waves, storms, and tsunamis. According to a bunch of researchers who analyzed corals in all corners of the world, coral reefs can dissipate a staggering 97 percent of wave vitality earlier than it reaches the shoreline. Corals additionally help extra species per unit space than every other marine setting whereas masking solely 0.01 p.c of the ocean flooring.

Except coral reefs are dying from the relentless stress attributable to local weather change. This much-documented demise has given rise to myriad synthetic reef options through the years—some unintended, others extremely engineered. These run the gamut from sunken ships to purposefully submerged outdated US military tanks, NYC subway cars, eerie underwater sculpture parks, and dome-shaped coral skeletons preseeded with coral fragments by robotic arms.