The reason why airports are so ‘low-lying’ boils down to practicality and convenience. Airports require large areas of flat land so runways can stretch off into the distance and aircraft have room to take off without immediately crashing into something. Historically, this type of space has been found on wetlands, marshlands and floodplains – all near large bodies of water. 

The majority of cities are situated close to or by the sea, while half the world’s population live within 60km of it. According to an estimate from the World Bank Group, around 350 million people reside less than five metres above sea level. 

Given these figures, it makes sense that airports exist so close to the line. Kansai International Airport sits around 3.4m above sea level, while airports in Singapore, the US, Australia, and certain Western European countries push the bar even lower. And then there’s Amsterdam Schiphol, which sits three meters below sea level. 

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average global sea level rose by 2.6inch between 1993 and 2014 and continues to climb by about one eight of an inch annually.

When this happens, storms have a tendency to push further inland, making flooding and extreme winds even more dangerous for coastal cities, including the airports that serve them. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused major disruption at New York’s low-lying Newark Liberty, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. 

Major flooding of terminals, emergency power installations, and inter-terminal transit networks can force airports to shut down. Strong storms can also break landing lights, navigation and radar installations, and communications equipment.

Seeing that airports are also a major component of disaster recovery efforts, these failures can lead to an even greater death toll. Forced cancellations and infrastructure damage as a result of flooding can have crippling economic and safety consequences.

Though some cities have relocated their airports, the cost of doing so can make it a nigh-on impossible task. The focus has therefore shifted to flood protection, which some industry experts claim is currently inadequate. 

In an editorial, NACO airport engineer Peter Vorage points to the fact that many airports are built on “legacy infrastructure with gradual expansion cycles”, meaning that drainage systems may not have been built to meet the demands of current rainfall levels. This is why a number of airports need to invest in better protection measures, including improved seawalls and drainage equipment, as well as the possibility of elevating their runways.

Airports can protect their perimeters using levees, tidal gates, detention ponds and pumping stations to manage huge volumes of floodwater. They could also find ways to minimise damage if seawalls are breached; in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Boston Logan Airport raised electrical equipment to an elevated level, in addition to creating new flood barriers. 

In October, Airports Council international (ACI) launched its Airports' Resilience and Adaptation to a Changing Climate policy. The brief encourages airports to consider the impact of climate change as they develop master plans. 

Juliana Scavuzzi, senior environment manager at ACI World, says that the brief allows airport operators to learn from their peers’ experiences, as it includes case studies of best practices adopted at other airports. One of these is Amsterdam Schiphol, which has established a 240km-long network of drainage structures, as well as a pumping system to expel water collected inside surrounding levees.

“[Schiphol] is found to be managing the impact of climate change well through its present-day operational and management practices as part of a national initiative,” she says. “Another example is Singapore Changi Airport where, for example, raising the road level surrounding the airport acts as a levee for district level flood protection, as well as a de-facto fixed flood barrier.”

Another airport taking its climate commitment seriously is San Francisco International (SFO), and with good reason; according to a recent study, the airport could see half of its runways underwater by 2100 due to rising sea levels. SFO has been constructing various types of seawalls, including earth berm and concrete dikes, along the San Francisco Bay since the 1980s.

"We’ve been studying what additional measures would be necessary to protect ourselves from sea level rise, and are now moving into the environmental review and permitting process on construction projects to address this,” says an SFO spokesperson. “Projects will focus on strengthening these areas, addressing shoreline areas that have no current protection and improving storm drainage systems."

Airport owners and investors are placing increasing pressure on operators to bolster the defences of their most prized assets. However, given the Federal Aviation Administration’s claim that weather-related events account for more than 70% all airport delays and costs, the price of doing so will likely be worth it in the potentially hazardous years to come.

Istanbul New Airport is a key element of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s mega infrastructure projects package, which also includes Kanal Istanbul and the now-complete third bridge over the Bosphorus.

“Due to the fact that Istanbul New Airport is the biggest infrastructure project in Turkey, it will have a huge impact on Turkey’s economy,” Akçayoğlu says.

According to the Economic Impact Analysis report, once fully completed INA will make a 4.89% contribution to national income per capita, as well as providing 100,000 direct and 150,000 indirect jobs. Its contribution to the tourism sector is estimated to be $7bn. 

Its location, chosen by the state authority, will take over 76.5 million square metres northwest of the city, replacing in part large swathes of forested areas. According to İGA, the project site had been devastated by mining activities since the 1980s and, before construction started, about 65% of the project site had lost its natural environment. 

“The location was an inefficient area covered with dirt and mud,” Akçayoğlu says. “We are transforming this inefficient field into the new aviation centre of the world.” 

Developers promise the airport will be fully connected by high-speed train, metro, bus and car and thus it will be “fully integrated with Istanbul’s transport infrastructure”. A brand new metro line from Gayrettepe to the airport was still under construction in November last year, with no further updates on the project’s status as of yet.

So far, more than 1.5 million square metres of earth has been moved through excavations and levelling activities. What will rise on this space is primed to be an astonishing airport made up of three terminals (one of which is to become the world’s biggest), six parallel runways and the capacity to welcome 90 million passengers per year in its first phase. Later expansion works will raise this to 200 million passengers once fully complete. In preparation, Turkish Airlines announced it will add 40 wide-body aircraft to its fleet. 

“During planning and building the different technology tools, we always had our passengers in mind,” Akçayoğlu says. “[INA] will be an airport that will consist of the newest technology and standards. Around 3,000 monitors will inform our passengers throughout various zones. In addition to this, iBeacon technology will provide indoor directions, walking times to gates, lounge access and boarding alerts.”

The baggage system alone will reach a length of 42km, equal to the distance between Taksim and Tuzla, and its system will be able to handle over 30,000 pieces of luggage per hour.

In terms of design, İGA promises that the terminals will “reflect the richness and beauty of Istanbul’s historical structures”. 

Once INA opens, it will become home to around 150 airlines and offer flights to 350 destinations, while Atatürk will be turned into a mixture of exhibition halls and a destination for charters, private jets and training aircrafts.

“Carrying out all the works at the same time is the biggest challenge for us,” Akçayoğlu admits. “While we were laying the foundations of construction, we made soil moving, designing, manufacturing and mobilisation at the same time. Every process had to be done very quickly and in parallel. Another challenge at the beginning of the project was to put a whole team together within three months. In the end I think we came successfully through all of these challenges.”

According to reports in the local press, construction is currently being sped up in order to allow the first plane to land on 26 February, President Erdoğan’s 64^th birthday.

But despite developers’ claims that the airport’s site was more or less a wasteland before works began, environmental campaigners believe the airport will wipe out precious hectares of forests and with them, the livelihoods of farmers, as well as one of Istanbulites’ last remaining areas of natural beauty neighbouring the country’s financial capital. 

In 2015, protesters representing Kuzey Ormanları Savunması (North Forest Defence), an organisation which campaigns to protect forests to the north of Istanbul from industrialisation and urban sprawl, showed up on the construction site marching with a banner depicting Erdoğan as a bulldozer uprooting a tree. 

The organisation staunchly opposes the airport, as well as a host of other mega industrial projects, such as the third bridge and Kanal Istanbul. 

“Instead of being planned as a city whose habitants can lead a healthy and happy life, Istanbul is [being] transformed into a growth engine that would shoulder the country’s economy,” North Forest Defence wrote in its 2015 report. “We have been experiencing a ruthless period where natural areas […] and ecosystems of thousands of years are being rapidly consumed under the state-controlled transformation that prioritises capital gain over public gain and is aimed at capital accumulation.”

One of the campaign’s arguments is that, far from being just an airport, the commercial and industrial area making up the future aerotropolis will spread even further, creating more damage: “green lands, water basins and great divides will be further plundered and the population that will flow into the region as well as the traffic they will create will destroy the North Forests irreversibly.”

Indeed, INA has grand plans for the future. The next phase includes more than 100,000m² of retail space, hosting the biggest Duty Free zone in the world, with more than 400 national and international brands. This will be accompanied by a plaza and Europe’s largest parking garage, with space for 24,000 vehicles.

“I can guarantee that every step we made in building Istanbul New Airport is well thought of,” Akçayoğlu says.

“Our first decision just after the tender award in May 2013 was to carry out an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment at the highest international standards to understand our impacts in that manner and plan necessary actions to minimise these impacts.”

Last year, the project received the Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year Award at Stevie International Business Awards 2017 for its efforts to minimise its impact for the 16,000 people directly and indirectly affected by construction. 

The new airport will also be the first ENVISION-certified infrastructure project outside North America and the world’s largest infrastructure project receiving the Envision certification. 

“Since this is a build-operate-transfer (BOT) type project, we’ve taken this as an opportunity by embedding our sustainability goals at the very early stages of our plans like integrating requirements of ENVISION and Green Airport for all activities within the project boundary and LEED for buildings. We’ve integrated these requirements to all our tenants' contracts also. We are really very tough on these. 

“We are changing sustainability culture in Turkey. In my opinion, we have a very good track [record] on this,” Akçayoğlu adds.