Palm Islands

The Palm Islands are two artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in the shape of palm trees. The Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractors Jan De Nul and Van Oord, were hired to complete construction. The islands are the Palm Jumeirah and the Palm Jebel Ali. Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped with a crescent. The settlements will have a large number of residential, leisure and entertainment centres and will add 520 kilometres of non-public beaches to the city of Dubai. The two islands will comprise approximately 100,000 cubic metres (3,500,000 cu ft)[dubious – discuss] of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in The UAE. On the two islands, there will be over 100 luxury hotels, residential beach-side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas. The creation of the Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001. Shortly after, the Palm Jebel Ali was announced and reclamation work began. A third island was planned and construction started, but this project was later remodelled and renamed to Deira Island. Construction The Palm Islands are artificial islands constructed from sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf by the Belgian company, Jan De Nul and the Dutch company, Van Oord. The sand is sprayed from the dredging ships, which are guided by aGlobal Positioning System, on to the required area. The process is known as rainbowing because of the rainbow-like arcs produced in the air when the sand is sprayed. The outer edge of each palm's encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. Each rock was placed individually by a crane, signed off by a diver and given a Global Positioning System coordinate.

The Jan De Nul Group started working on the Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and had finished by the end of 2006. The reclamation project for the Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a four-kilometer-long peninsula, protected by a 200-meter-wide, seventeen-kilometer long circular breakwater. There are 210,000,000 cubic meters of rock, sand and limestone that were reclaimed (partly originating from the Jebel Ali entrance channel dredging work). There are approximately 10,000,000 cubic meters of rocks in the Slope Protection Works.

Palm Jumeirah

The Palm Jumeirah consists of a tree trunk, a crown with 16 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is five kilometers by five kilometers. It adds 78 kilometers to the Dubai coastline. Residents began moving into Palm Jumeirah properties at the end of 2006, five years after land reclamation began. A Monorail opened in 2009, but is not connected to other public transport. Palm Jebel Ali The Palm Jebel Ali began construction in October 2002 and was expected to be completed in mid-2008.

The project, which is 50% larger than the Palm Jumeirah project, will include six marinas, a water theme park, a sea village, homes built on stilts, and boardwalks that encircle the fronds of the palm. Environmental concerns The construction of the Palm Islands and The World, for all Nakheel's attempts to do otherwise, have had a clear and significant impact on the surrounding environment. It would be impossible to introduce a change of such magnitude to an established ecosystem and not anticipate any negative changes or reactions in the area's wildlife and natural processes.

The construction of the various islands off the coast of Dubai has resulted in changes in area wildlife, coastal erosion and alongshore sediment transport, and wave patterns. Sediment stirred up by construction has suffocated and injured local marine fauna and reduced the amount of sunlight filtered down to seashore vegetation. Variations in alongshore sediment transport have resulted in changes in erosion patterns along the UAE coast, which has also been exacerbated by altered wave patterns as the waters of the Gulf attempt to move around the new obstruction of the islands. Not surprisingly, Dubai's megaprojects have become a favorite cause of environmentalists. Greenpeace has criticized the Palm Islands' complete and utter lack of sustainability, and Mongabay.com, a site dedicated to rain forest conservation, has attacked Dubai's artificial islands aggressively, stating that: significant changes in the maritime environment [of Dubai] are leaving a visual scar [... ] As a result of the dredging and redepositing of sand for the construction of the islands, the typically crystalline waters of the gulf of Dubai have become severely clouded with silt.

Construction activity is damaging the marine habitat, burying coral reefs, oyster beds and subterranean fields of sea grass, threatening local marine species as well as other species dependent on them for food. Oyster beds have been covered in as much as two inches of sediment, while above the water, beaches are eroding with the disruption of natural currents .

Structural importance

The Palm Island is made out of only sand and rocks (no use of concrete to build the island). This was done according to the order of the Prince of Dubai to make it very natural. The Project idea was conceived by the Prince himself and he was the one who came up with the design for the island.

The primary objective of construction of the Palm Islands was to increase tourism in Dubai. This importance to tourism was given as the oil reserves in the gulf were getting depleted and hence the Prince of Dubai decided to make tourism as a major revenue turning source for the country. Thereby, leading to the inception of the Palm Islands. The Palm island consisted of resorts, hotels and was a major holiday destination. Construction resources involved 5.5 million cubic metres of rock brought from over 16 quarries in Dubai. 94 million cubic metres of sand brought from deep sea beds 6 nautical miles from the coast of Dubai.

Project risks and threats

• Waves 2 metres high
• Storm frequency of 1 in 100 years
• Earthquakes from 6 to 7 on the Richter scale. (Gulf area between Dubai and Iran is prone to earthquakes.)
• Weak soil due to constant exposure to rising sea water

Hidden problems

Erosion, caused by winds and water currents, is one of the biggest problems present, as it strips away the sand which forms the majority of the island. Damage to the marine ecology (e.g. the loss of reefs and fish), including disturbances in the reproductive cycles of the species of fish that were close to the shores of Dubai. Research conducted by marine biologists on this phenomenon showed that the newly-born fish were not able to survive in conditions along the shores of Dubai due to constant construction and environmental alterations (e.g. shifting of sand, moving boulders and the effects of the vibrators used to compact the sand and soil). Due to the shape of the island right outside the coast of Dubai, there is loss of coastal shape along the seashore of Dubai.

Risk mitigation

To counteract with the waves and the constant motion of the sea, wave blockers were built all around the palm island. They were 3 meters high and 160 kilometers in total length. Expanded over a length of about 11.5 kilometers, the base of these stoppers and the island as such were constantly monitored during construction process with the help of deep sea divers. They check for the proper alignment and placement of the rocks beneath the surface to ensure its stability. Shape of the island as it got developed in the middle of the sea was constantly monitored using the global positioning system (the satellite was placed about 676 kilometres from sea level into space). The sand on top of the island was sprayed by a technique called rainbowing. Here the sand from the dredging ships was sprayed on to the land. The whole island was set such that there was no stagnant water between the island and the water breakers. So in order to achieve this, there were small structural modifications done on the breakers that outlined the island. Hence making the sea water to move through in and out of the breakers without causing any damage to the island. To prevent erosion of the soil from the island, there were constant maintenance setups to spray soil along the coast of the island and also along the Dubai coast. Coastal ecology was recovered with the help of nature itself. These changes surprisingly started attracting newer species of fishes and also reef formations. Every 6 weeks sea divers go down under water to check the marine life. This was part of their monitoring process. Hence the aquatic scenario designers took these into consideration and added plus points in making some of the finest coral reef finishes built by man. There were also some precautions that were taken to prevent the process of liquifaction of the sand on the island (below the upper surface). This process of liquifaction was caused due to movement of the rocks and sand and also under water erosions before and after construction. Vibro-compaction technique was the method that was employed to prevent the process of liquifaction. This was carried out in order to hold the composition of the island's base together and also to make a strong foundation for further constructions. Construction effects and repercussions The construction of the Palm islands along the coast of Dubai has caused several large environmental changes: a reduction in the area's aquatic life, erosion of the coastal soil, and irregular sediment transport along the shore. There is also a dramatic change in wave patterns along the coast of Dubai due to the rock walls constructed around the palm islands: instead of hitting the shores directly, the waves move in an unusual manner around the new obstruction. This has led to the weakening of the shores of Dubai. Most of the environmental damage was caused by the sediments stirred up by the construction; it suffocated and injured the surrounding marine fauna and decreased the amount of sunlight filtering down to the sea vegetation. Such environmental disturbances have turned the heads of many environmental activists. Greenpeace and Mongabay.com (Rain forest conservation organization) have expressed very strong opinions against the building of the Dubai Palm islands. It also mentioned that the construction from the start up to date had caused many visible ecological and environmental changes that were a threat to the future.

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