 Beginning with British colonial establishment in 1819, Singapore's coastline has undergone an extensive history of decline through alteration and land reclamation.Hilton and Manning found that from the period of 1922 to 1993, the area of mangroves, coral reefs, and intertidal mudflats decreased dramatically, the actual percentage of natural coastline dropping from 96 to 40%.In order to combat these deleterious anthropogenic effects, Singapore's government came up with a Master Plan in 2008 which incorporated the modification of shorelines in accordance with the ecological principles of soft engineering.