"It is a process that has been duplicated up and down the coast of Dubai since the launch of the original Palm island five years ago. Today, dredgers like the Ham 318 are removing more than one million m3 of sand from the seabed of the emirate’s coastal waters every week – and the process is likely to continue for the next five years, when the reclamation of the Dubai Waterfront project is due to complete.-- read more HERE
But after that point, there will not be enough sand left within the territorial waters of Dubai to allow for any more island building, according to dredging companies who have spoken to Construction Week."
Funny. Never would've imagined a middle eastern desert country running out of sand...
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[quote] Funny. Never would've imagined a middle eastern desert country running out of sand...[/quote]
Correction Sam, it is not the Middle Eastern desert country running out of (desert) sand. They have almost run out the sand available in the seabed!
[quote]
" But after that point, there will not be enough sand left within the territorial waters of Dubai to allow for any more island building, according to dredging companies who have spoken to Construction Week."
...
“If you put desert sand in water, then it won’t settle. The reason is that it is very fine and it’s completely rounded as a result of the action of the wind.”
A senior manager at the Delft Institute in the Netherlands agrees that the use of land sand for reclamation purposes is extremely problematic.
“It is quite well known that you can make quite a few mistakes if you just pick up onshore material, partly because of the shape of the grains and partly because it’s contaminated with other land materials like vegetation, clay and silt. It’s settlement profile and capacity to bear loads would be very different.”
[/quote]
It's correct in that they couldn't use land sand for the islands.
I went diving a couple of weeks ago, the day after the last big sandstorm.
The sand from that storm was sitting as a layer in the first 5m of water, and when we got to deeper, it cleared again. It can't sink because it's much finer than sea sand and as the quote says, it has different properties.
The more worrying effect on the marine environment is what happens when they take all the marine sand away? This sand is vital for the marine food chain. It harbours shellfish and molluscs, is used by seaweeds for anchorage, and is the feeding ground of many different fish species.
Without the sand, the life and feeding cycles of the UAE's marine life are going to be drastically affected. Fisherman are going to have to go further afield to catch anything worth selling.
I predict that the longterm environmental fallout from the dredging is going to be very detrimental to the sealife around the western shores of the UAE.
As well, they're taking a lot of rock out of the Hajjars for these projects. You only have to drive from Dubai to Al Dhaid to see the long convoys of trucks groaning and bending under the weight of the tonnes of rock that they're bringing into Dubai.
I heard there is a mega project to replace seabed sand in Dubai with tiles...
That is surprising.
There were reports that the sand for the Dubai Waterfront was being taken from inland.(for the Arabian Canal)
woke --And if you want to see how unfit desert sand is for the sea, go down to the "Russian Beach" and walk in the ocean near the breakwater. Unless things have changed since the last time I was there about a year ago, it's like wading through mud. They dumped desert sand into the sea to 'help' with the erosion problem, and it's a disaster. We divers have seen this coming.... why couldn't Nakheel? (oops! silly question...)
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