PALM JUMEIRAH

Stretching six kilometers into the Arabian Gulf lays the most audacious engineering project the world has ever seen, the Palm Jumeirah. The Palm Jumeirah is so vast that it can be seen from space. It is build only from sand and rock and is threatened by earthquakes, violent storms and erosion from the sea. It is clearly remarkable that Palm Jumeirah exists at all. On august 2001, the Arabian Gulf is a massive activity. This massive island is being build out at sea. Everyday, the engineers have to protect what they had already built as the sea erodes their work.

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The Palm Islands are made up of ninety four million cubic meters of sand and six million cubic meters of rock. Together, there is enough sand and rock to build a two meters high wall on the entire Earth. The only way to build this island and to ensure that it stays there is to build a protective surrounding around it. But how big should this sea defense need to be? To find out, the engineers must find out the strength of the Dubai storms, the height of the water waves and the effects of global warming in raising the sea level. After months of observations and research, the Engineers concluded that this protective wall has to be three meters higher than the waves and twelve kilometers in length.

To build these amazing man made islands, huge ships pour loads of sand into the seabed. This must be done when the sea is at its calmest. Next the engineers put an armor of hard rock over the sand, each rock more than six tons to protect it from the destructive effects of the sea. There is no concrete or steel holding these rocks in place. However, there is more engineering genius to this. These rocks are not just randomly dumped into the sea – the heaviest ones are at the bottom and each rock support its surrounding rocks to give a self-sustaining structure. Constant checks are done to ensure that the rocks are in place. Hundreds of divers were sent in everyday to pinpoint and check every meter of it.

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Next, to put the sand for the interior of the Palm Jumeirah, the engineers took the sand from the gulf seabed and then sprayed into place. This process is called ‘rainbowing’. Night and day, the rainbowed sand builds up to four meters out of the water, slowly giving shape to the silhouette of the palm island.  Since there are no fixed positions in the ocean and there is no way of knowing if the shape is right when standing on the ground, the engineers have to constantly use the GPS to make sure that the correct shape is obtained. Now the engineers realized that they have a big problem – The round surrounding around the islands did protect the islands from the ocean’s current but it stopped the circulation of water. So the engineers came up with an easy and brilliant solution. They just made two gaps in the surrounding. This ensured fresh water circulation in the palm islands. Now more than four thousand five hundred hotels, houses and apartments are ready to be built. But there is still one more problem. Sand is not easy to build on. Since the sand has been sprayed into position, it is loose and not compact. A strong base is vital to support the huge construction. Before construction can start, engineers must find a way to compact the sand and make it firm. So they firm up the land by drilling more than two hundred thousand holes then shaking it. This compacts the sand around it. Then they pour in more sand until the area around it is rock solid.

With everything in place, construction starts. As the world watches, the palm island becomes a reality. Against all odds, the Palm Islands rises protected by the ever-increasing sea wall. It is a symbol of engineering achievement visible from space. The Palm Islands are truly awesome. Now Dubai is making three hundred islands that will look like Earth from space. It has all the countries on it. It is called ‘The World’. The Palm Islands put Dubai on the map. Now ‘The World’ puts the map on Dubai.

4 thoughts on “PALM JUMEIRAH

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  2. Richard

    Good topic. Good coverage – you know what I know. The ex pats who live there have 49 year leases. this attracts wealthy foreigners like David Beckham. Most Middle Eastern countries do not allow any ownership of their land. So this lease technique attracted a lot of people. I think they sold out in about 3 days.

    You can only see the Palm tree from the air or space of course.

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