Linked to global warming and the climatic changes already observed, the rising water is a phenomenon for centuries to come. Causing floods, increasing coastal erosion, violent natural disasters, these rising waters are expected to reshape deeply our geographic current. Indeed, many littoral zone on the globe, both urban and agricultural, are likely to be flooded, currently threatening millions of inhabitants. It is estimated that there will be 250 million climate refugees by 2050.

Faced with this alarming prospect, H₂O (for “Humanitarian Harbour of the Ocean“) is a humanitarian floating farm that responds to this urgency. An emergency housing estate that can accommodate some 500 climate refugees in 250 dwellings, that is to say the equivalent of a village or a small neighborhood, this floating platform is above all an intensive farm that aims at food and energy independence. Using all of the most innovative agricultural techniques such as aeroponics, aquaponics, or the entomoculture, the H₂O farm offers a self-sustaining eco-system called “high-tech permaculture“.

The H₂O project poffers a modular structure capable of adapting itself to the stages of the rising waters. For the time being, the H₂O module is intended to be deployed near a town directly threatened by a disaster but can also be used as a urban farm offering local products to towns lacking arable lands. In the not too distant future (2100), the association of several H₂O modules would represent a floating urban extension, connecting and protecting cities threatened by erosion. In the longer term still (2500), a larger circular combination of H₂O modules would form a real floating city, independent from the mainland. H₂O would thus “live at sea” by offering a productive archipelago.