Flotillas of floating homes, shops and offices are being proposed as 21st-century arks to ride out the floods global warming will bring. A Scottish creative designer and entrepreneur is developing plans for a series of aquatic villages along the Clyde.

Drawing on designs pioneered in the Netherlands, Bill Borland's Creative Mode company has been talking to developers, planners and government agencies about an idea whose time he believes has come.

"The statutory bodies talk of bringing life to the Clyde, but I want to put life on to the Clyde," he said. Properties built along the waterfront will be flooded more often and more seriously over the next 50 years due to rising sea levels and fiercer storms caused by climate change, he warned.

Borland, 54, brought up in Paisley but based in Halifax, calls his scheme Aquartek. He has made specific proposals for floating communities at the Cuningar Loop of the Clyde at Dalmarnock in south Lanarkshire and at Braehead in Renfrewshire.

His latest venture is a submission to develop part of the river by the Briggait, the former fish market in central Glasgow. There he envisages a hotel extension, a restaurant, a bar and 16 studio offices, all floating on the water.

Borland has also developed Aquartek schemes for the Mersey and the Thames. He said he was also having discussions on waterfront development proposals in Fort William. The schemes include aquapods, or houseboats, that could provide starter units for first-time buyers and would be powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Bigger houses - aquavillas - would be built on "unsinkable" pontoons.

Other properties could be built on stilts, high above flood levels and linked by walkways. "Floating hotels, museums, art galleries, shopping complexes, bars, restaurants, sports arenas and stadia, theatres and cinemas can all be accommodated," he said.

Such concepts have already been developed in Holland, he pointed out. The low-lying country "had woken up to the reality that it must not just swim or sink, but float on living water to survive and prosper".

According to a recent study for the Scottish government, as many as 100,000 properties in Scotland are at risk of flooding, including 1750 in Glasgow. More than half a million properties are thought to be at risk across the UK.

One of Borland's schemes for the Clyde has been considered by Scottish Enterprise. "Though the proposal is an imaginative one and would appear to have merit," said one official, "it is not really at the stage where it can be considered by Scottish Enterprise as a potential Clyde Waterfront project".

The Scottish government stressed that the first priority must be to cut the pollution that is causing climate change, but accepted that it was also essential to investigate "any potential opportunities".

"We encourage local authorities to consider a broad range of options for flood alleviation, and they are required to consider the implications of climate change in the design of flood risk management measures," said a government spokesman. "We have received correspondence from Mr Borland and will reply in due course."

Friends of the Earth Scotland urged authorities not to dismiss Borland's vision out of hand. "People who consider the idea too far-fetched need only look to places like Canada and the Netherlands, where floating homes and offices are already in use," said chief executive Duncan McLaren.