With a current population of 1.4 billion, and still actively growing, not to mention an also increasing elderly population, China is getting headaches where to place its dead. Faced with the reality and problem of scarce land, the world's second-largest economy has started to pitch the option of sea burial to its citizens.

In fact, to encourage citizens, government officials offer cash incentives to families who make the shift from land to sea burials. Local governments in Shanghai, Shaoxing and Wenzhou offer $320, $800 and $1,290 respectively for sea burials.

Also part of the sea burial package is transportation, including all-expense-paid boat trips.

On the morning of the burial, families will take a shuttle bus to a dock, holding the ashes of their dead which have been cremated earlier. Led by an organizer, a service will be held and culminated with the remains mixed with flowers. At an appointed spot, the relatives will be instructed to cast overboard to the sea the ashes.

China is observing Tomb Sweeping Day on Thursday. Locally known as Qingming Festival, the day is a time for the Chinese to commemorate their dead, to tend the graves of their loved ones by serving and leaving food and liquor at their burial sites and burning fake money as offering.

But the tradition could most likely become a thing of the past as securing and maintain cemetery plots become increasingly more expensive, thus the introduction of the sea burial option.

In the capital of Guangdong province alone, a cemetery plot is now priced $12,880 per square meter on the average, which is much costly than the rate for local luxury commercial apartments.

And although there are priced way more expensive, citizens are nevertheless still buying the cemetery lots, since the issue here is primarily the scarcity or lack of available burial land.

Beijing had already pronounced plans of reducing the allowable grave sizes this year. The current limit is one square meter per person. A study by the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed most of China's provinces will run out of burial room in the next 10 years, with the provinces of Shanxi, Shandong and Guangdong having less than five years.