Palm Island
Go here to see pictures of Dubai projects.
Posted on 02/18/2009 5:04:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
The jury is still out on whether Dubai’s offshore reclamation projects are a sound ecological addition to the Gulf, say world experts studying new artificial reefs at the mega-billion dollar developments.
However, in interviews on Tuesday near the trunk of the Jebel Ali Palm, marine scientists said early data is promising - new coral is growing on the windward outer reaches of breakwaters erected around Nakheel’s Palm Trilogy and The World.
The comments from experts with the United Nations University International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) came as a two-day coastal monitoring workshop wrapped up in Dubai.
United Nations experts and Nakheel have teamed up in a partnership formed in 2007 to monitor the effects of mega reclamation on the environment.
“I think in 20 years you will have a rocky reef with some very large fish living on it,” said Dr. Peter Sale, Assistant Director of UNU-INWEG, in an interview, “hammour, the very big ones particularly, if protective fishing is put in place.”
Since a Nakheel-supported team of 11 scientists started collecting on-site data from dredged artificial reefs off Dubai shores in mid-2008, Sale said as many as 100 species of fish and 15 to 20 species of coral have been observed on site.
New colonies of phytoplankton, oysters, and invertebrates are also establishing their presence on the stepped-underwater foundations of the Nakheel breakwaters, he said.
The “richness of fish and coral is greater on the breakwaters than it is on the natural reefs,” said Sale, a 40-year Canadian marine ecologist.
The breakwaters protrude above the sandy Gulf bottom providing a solid substrate for new aquatic life, he said.
Studying the new manmade reclamation projects will be important, Sale said, for a world that has been modifying its earthly terrain for 8,000 years and is only relatively of late beginning to create new marine-based environments such as the Palm Jumeirah, Palm Deira and Palm Jebel Ali.
Accepting that such mega projects will become more common, Sale said “it’s more important that we are able to manage it and mitigate the changes…The fact is we’re not doing a good job of management.”
Fellow Canadian and marine biologist Dr. Ken Drouillard said “there is still a cautionary tale how these systems are managed in the future.”
Drouillard is head of the Organic Analytical Laboratory of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Windsor, Canada.
He said he was aware of problems arising out of manmade structures that by their sheer size and presence interfere with the natural ebb and flow of the water around them.
European studies, for example, have revealed that manmade structures off Dubai have greatly changed wave patterns and, accordingly, shoreline erosion along the emirate’s 70 kilometres of natural coastline.
The addition of manmade islands has created more than 1,000 kilometres of new coastline for Dubai developers.
Other studies have suggested that calm waters inside the Nakheel breakwaters are not subjected to rigorous natural wave movement and could lead to muddy like beaches and stagnating waters within the frond extensions from the palm design.
“There are several key issues that could arise,” Drouillard said, adding the team is concerned about the “lagoon” effect of calm water.
But Drouillard said that Nakheel has pursued efforts “to maximise water flow” to keep protected waters inside the breakwaters suitable for marine life. Large gaps have been punched in the circular seawalls at strategic points to allow water to flow through but not disturb the tranquility of the Palm settings.
Keeping protected waters safe from anoxia – oxygen depletion – is paramount, he said.
“You can get fish kills. There are a whole host of problems that require proactive monitoring,” he said.
Human residents of the offshore areas, as well, want to live in healthy sea conditions free of odour and stagnation issues, Drouillard said.
In a statement on Tuesday, Nakheel said that it has high hopes for the monitoring team and study results noting the effort could help find “methods for optimising circulation in lagoon areas” and “advice for improved reclamation design”.
The research programme continues to take comparison marine samples in “the southern Gulf and those developing around the Nakheel projects”, Nakheel said, “enabling an accurate assessment of the value of the marine environment that the Nakheel projects represent.”
The partnership
The UNU-INWEH and Nakheel partnership formed in January 2007 has several aims:
* Create a coastal monitoring program of Nakheel’s coastal communities * Technical seminars to share new developments on coastal management practices * Work with regional governments, NGOs and universities * A new marine biological laboratory – EHS-Trakhees, opened in March 2008 -- with Dubai World
Since that project go underway I’ve been wondering of the laws of nature just don’t apply in the Persian Gulf. If you built that on any other shoreline in the world, it would wash away within a decade.
I thought everyone left Dubai. There are 3,000 abandoned autos at their airport presently.
Dubai’s going broke, is the Indonesian going to stimulate it?
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