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Dubai; Engineering Marvel or Environmental Disaster?
I was at the gym recently using the treadmill which has a television mounted to the handlebar. After I selected my workout program, I tuned the TV to the Discovery channel which was broadcasting a show about construction in Dubai, one of seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates. I'm not exactly sure when the program was taped, but estimate that it was about two years ago. The program claimed that at that time, 40% of the world's cranes (as in construction cranes, not the birds) were in Dubai. Forty percent! I found this astonishing.
What followed was even more mind boggling. Construction takes place 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Engineers and construction workers from around the world number in the hundreds of thousands making Dubai the busiest construction site in the world.
Among the many buildings taking shape is the Burj Dubai. With an expected completion date of September 2009, it will be the tallest freestanding manmade structure ever built at 818 meters, surpassing Toronto's CN Tower which stands just over 553 meters.
Another marvel of modern engineering is the Dubai Ski Hill. Yes, that's right. There's a ski hill in this city where temperatures regularly reach in excess of 40C.
Dubai has also created over 800 kilometers of new beach front homes with the formation of the three Palm Islands, so named because from above they look like palm trees. Jumeirah, Jebel Ali and Deira islands were created, not surprisingly, by a Dutch dredging and marine contracting company which is one of the world's leaders in land reclamation. Watching the barges as they dredged the ocean floor five kilometers offshore to create these islands left me speechless.
The excess continues with the construction of the Palazzo Versace Hotel, which will boast the world's first refrigerated beach as well as an air cooled swimming pool.
It's really not surprising then that Dubai is the world leader in carbon emissions. It is estimated that each Dubai resident releases over 44 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every single year. The blatant disregard for the environment in its quest to become the Super City of the world where nothing is impossible has made Dubai an easy place to hate for even an arm chair environmentalist. The Tiger Woods golf course alone requires four million gallons, that's fifteen million liters, of water per day just so it can stay green.
The infrastructure, specifically the water and waste water treatment simply cannot keep up with the pace of development. As early as 2007 Dubai's waste water treatment facility was operating at over 70% capacity, which means it produces effluent which does not meet international standards. A new treatment plant is not expected to come online until 2010.
The increased demand for drinking water has put additional pressure on the Dubai Electricity Water Authority which oversees the desalination process. Demand for desalinated water which supplies 97% of Dubai's of the water (with the remainder coming from wells) increased by 10% last year to a staggering 88,500 million imperial gallons. What's even more alarming is that 60% of DEWA's water output is consumed by the residential sector.
There's nothing green about Dubai except the petro dollars that fuel its expansion. Interestingly, Dubai's oil reserves are expected to be depleted in less than 20 years and contribute only 5% to the emirates treasury. The rest of the economy rests squarely on tourism, and real estate, the latter taking a beating in the past year due to the general global economic downturn. Abu Dhabi, another oil rich emirate that is part of the United Arab Emirates has invested an estimated $10 billion in Dubai's economy.
This city of 1.5 million people (of which only 17% are Emirati) has undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of engineering and construction, but those in charge have shown an appalling lack of sustainability and environmental planning. How this lack of foresight will play out, only the sands of time can tell.
About the Author This article was written by Shawn Wilson, a member of the customer support team at Datepad, where we always offer free internet dating. Datepad has a massive directory of informative free dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on our dating blog.
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