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In the maldives for over a decade, and has dedicated herself to studying this natural shift of sand to find a way to create islands sustainably. so first of all, you know, we had to study the fundamentals. so at mit, they are studying the fundamental physics and engineering of it. so, like, trying to understand, how does a sandbank actually form? and that, we've done through satellite imagery and drone footage and, you know, talking to other locals around here, trying to understand the historical data of how sandbanks appear and disappear. five years ago, sarah partnered up with the scientists...

Building up on another end. and as a physicist, i thought, you know, can we use this? sarah dole is sri lankan, but has been living in the maldives for over a decade, and has dedicated herself to studying this natural shift of sand to find a way to create islands sustainably. so first of all, you know, we had to study the fundamentals. so at mit, they are studying the fundamental physics and engineering of it. so, like, trying to understand, how does a sandbank actually form? and that, we've done through satellite imagery and drone footage and, you know, talking to other locals around here, tr...

People crammed into a space more densely populated than manhattan. and it's completely hectic. it's so packed, it's hard to get a sense of how developed it is until you get a little bit of distance. there's not an inch of space left. so much so that they built another island just to house all the people. this is hulhumale, built to cope with an ever—growing population just 15 years ago. but how do you build an island? to find out, i went on a brand—new one. so, we're standing on an artificial island? exactly. two—and—a—half years ago, - this was a very small sandbank which has been a...

This is the beginnings of a new island built on sandbags. and you can see where the sand has accumulated using the forces of nature. it's been here for about two years. it's 20 metres long, it's about four metres wide and about 1.5 metres above the sea bed. another half—metre and it should pop up above the surface and hopefully just keep growing. each time we go, we try different materials, different construction techniques. the reason for that is because we want to try to make it as scalable as possible. because this is a global problem, it's not only focused on the maldives. so if you real...

How much sand do you need to do that? we have put in almost the equivalent of 100 i olympic swimming pools. this will soon be a luxury resort. but the trouble with building this way is it massively damages the environment. disturbed sand sediments can smother the very corals that the maldives relies on for protection. the more you dredge, the worse the erosion becomes. to see the effects this is having on the local population, i'm travelling to the island of dhiffushi. there are no resorts here, just simple guest houses. wow, look at this! you can clearly see that the beach is eroded. the beac...