Few question the environmental benefits of switching from traditional fossil fuel sources to renewable biofuels. Decreased carbon emissions, more stable fuel costs, and even a new generation of jobs are all seen as potential benefits of this new wave in agriculture.

But as a spike in food costs earlier this year showed, converting arable land to biofuel production is not without economic peril. Land reclamation has presented itself as a potential solution to this problem, but the environmental costs of the procedure may not be worth the ostensible gains.

Land reclamation -- the conversion of shallow bays or swamplands to solid ground -- has long played a role in expanding areas for human habitation. The Netherlands provides perhaps the best know example of land reclamation, with its elaborate Deltaworks system, created after a series of devastating floods in the 1950s. The city of Boston, Massachusetts, also dramatically increased available land through reclamation, but unlike the Netherlands, its efforts predated widespread environmental awareness, leading to that city's famous association with dirty water.

Aside from acting as a water filter, pulling particulate contaminants and other foreign particles from water, wetlands also act as a complex chemical filter, absorbing heavy metals and other toxic pollutants, and keeping them out of the larger biosystem. Furthermore, coastal wetland developments can serve as a first line of defense against severe weather, offering protection against everything from the storm surge associated with major tropical storms and hurricanes to a natural check against land reclamation.

In addition to these environmental issues, land reclamation also threatens biodiversity. Because of the unique environmental features presented by coastal systems, some species are unable to thrive outside their narrowly defined ecosystems. Despite the extensive planning and mitigation involved in recent South Korean land reclamation projects, massive declines have been noted in several species of shorebirds, totaling a loss of 137,000 individuals across all regional species. Similar losses have also been inflicted upon other creatures reliant on the delicate coastal habitat for survival, Australia's Dugongs foremost among them.

The key to finding a balanced solution between biodiversity maintenance and increasing useable land is optimizing use of existing land, and recreating the delicate coastal structures that reclamation developments all too often destroy. Aquatic biofuels, such as algae and seaweed, can reduce the need to convert shorelines to arable land, while mass transit and higher population densities can increase the size of populations that existing municipalities can support.

Photo by Flickr user dbdbrobot