Feats of EngineeringThe Palm Islands

The Palm Islands are an artificial archipelago (islands) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), off the coast in the Persian Gulf. Major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the UAE. The Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractors Jan De Nul and Van Oord, some of the world's leading specialists in land reclamation, were hired to complete construction. The islands are the Palm Jumeirah, the Palm Jebel Ali and the Palm Deira.

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 centers. The Palm Islands will add 520 kilometers of beaches to the city of Dubai.

The first two islands will comprise approximately 100,000 cubic metres (3,500,000 cu ft) of rock and sand. The Palm Deira will be composed of approximately one billion cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in The UAE. Among the three islands, there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive 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. The Palm Deira is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kilometres (17.90 sq mi) and was announced for development in October 2004. Before the impact of the global credit crunch hit Dubai, construction was originally planned to take 10–15 years.

Two other artificial archipelagos, The World and The Universe, are located between the Palm Islands.

Construction of the Palm Islands 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 a Digital Global Positioning System, on to the required area in a process known as rainbowing. 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 is in the shape of a palm tree. It consists of a trunk, a crown with 16 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) long breakwater. The island is 5 by 5 kilometres (3.1 by 3.1 mi) and its total area is larger than 800 football pitches. The crown is connected to the mainland by a 300-metre (980 ft) bridge and the crescent is connected to the top of the palm by a subsea tunnel. The island doubled the length of the Dubai coastline.

According to the developer's publicity material, the Jumeirah Palm island will feature themed hotels, three types of villas (Signature Villas, Garden Homes and Canal Cove Town Homes), apartment buildings, beaches, marinas, restaurants, and a variety of retail outlets.

Two F-100 Super Sabre fighter jets have been stripped and sunk near The Palm Jumeirah to create an artificial reef, intended as an additional attraction for divers.

On 18 June 2007, the Cunard Line announced that it had sold its former flagship, RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, to Istithmar for use as a floating hotel at The Palm Jumeirah beginning in 2009. In July 2009, it was rumoured that the ship would rather relocate to Cape Town for use in an unrelated Nakheel development. As of 2013, it is still located in Dubai, but the floating hotel plan has not eventuated.

The Palm Jumeirah Monorail is a 5.4 kilometres (3.4 mi) monorail connecting the Atlantis Hotel to the Gateway Towers at the foot of the island, opened on May 6, 2009, located on Palm Jumeirah island in

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The monorail connects the Palm Jumeirah to the mainland, with a planned further extension to the Red Line of the Dubai Metro. The line opened on April 30, 2009. It is the first monorail in the Middle East.

Construction began with the Palm Jumeirah island in June 2001 and the developers announced handover of the first residential units in 2006. The island has been created using 94,000,000 cubic metres (3.3×109 cu ft) of sand and 7 million tons of rock. The Palm Jumeirah was created by pouring sand fill onto the 10.5 metre-deep seabed using dredgers. Above sea level, 3 metres of the reclamation were achieved by a dredging technique known as "rainbowing", in which the sand fill was sprayed over the surface of the rising island. Calcareous sand was used for the reclamation. The island includes a curved breakwater using natural rock, intended to encourage the creation of a natural reef and provide habitats for sea life. The land form was reclaimed by the Dutch company Van Oord. Total cost reached US$12.3 billion and maintaining the island is a costly expenditure. Approximately 40,000 workers, mostly from South Asia, have been involved in the construction of the island.

In early October 2007, the Palm Jumeirah had already become the world's largest artificial island. Also at this time, 75% of the properties were ready to hand over, with 500 families already residing on the island. By the end of 2009, 28 hotels were opened on the Crescent.

Palm Jebel Ali The Palm Jebel Ali is an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates which began construction in October 2002, was originally planned to be completed by mid-2008 and has been on hold since. The project, which is 50 percent larger than the Palm Jumeirah, is proposed to include six marinas, a water theme park, 'Sea Village', homes built on stilts above the water, and boardwalks that circle the "fronds" of the "palm" and spell out an Arabic poem by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum:

Take wisdom from the wise

It takes a man of vision to write on waterNot everyone who rides a horse is a jockey

Great men rise to greater challenges

The breakwater was completed in December 2006, and infrastructure work began in April 2007. Major construction will not begin until most of the infrastructure work is complete. Following the financial crisis of 2008 work has been suspended and the developers, Nakheel, have confirmed no work would take place on the development in the near future.

One of the first buildings on The Palm Jebel Ali is already known. Nakheel invited several architects to design a building on a 300,000 m2 area. The winning design was a building by Royal Haskoning, who also worked on several other projects in Dubai.[3] The building can be seen here.

In the first signs of a slowing Dubai property market, the prices of properties being sold on the Palm Jebel Ali were reported to have fallen by 40% in the two months to November 2008, with the fall being attributed to the Financial crisis of 2007–2010. In March 2011 Nakheel offered refunds to property investors.

Once completed, The Palm Jebel Ali is expected to house more than 250,000 people.

In the original schedule, by 2012, the first phase of four theme parks would have opened on the Crescent. These planned parks, which together will be called "World of Discovery," will be developed and operated by the Busch Entertainment Corporation. The parks include SeaWorld, Aquatica, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove. The World of Discovery will be located at the top of the Crescent, which will form into the shape of an orca (reminiscent of Shamu).

Palm Deira The Palm Deira is an artificial archipelago, part of the Palm Islands, Dubai. It was announced for development in October 2004. The first announced design was 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger than the Palm Jebel Ali, and was intended to house one million people. Originally, the design called for a 14 by 8.5 kilometres (8.7 by 5.3 mi) island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the farther out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5 by 7.5 kilometres (7.8 by 4.7 mi) island with 18 larger fronds. It will be located alongside Deira. The project is currently on-hold.

By early October 2007, 20% of the island's reclamation was complete, with a total of 200 million cubic metres (7 billion cubic feet) of sand already used. Then in early April 2008, Nakheel announced that more than a quarter of the total area of the Palm Deira had been reclaimed. This amounted to 300 million cubic metres (10.6 billion cubic feet) of sand. Since the island is so large, it is being developed in several phases. The first one is the creation of Deira Island. This portion of the Palm will sit alongside the Deira Corniche between the entrance to Dubai Creek and Al Hamriya Port. Promotional materials state that Deira Island will act as "the gateway to The Palm Deira" and help to revitalize the aging area of Deira. By early April 2008, 80% of Deira Island Front's reclamation was complete.

A new redesign was quietly introduced in November 2008, further reducing the size of the project. Since 2008 the project is on-hold.

Palm Deira in May 2008.

The World Archipelago The World or World Islands is an artificial archipelago of various small islands constructed in the rough shape of a world map, located 4.0 kilometres (2.5 mi) off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The World islands are composed mainly of sand dredged from Dubai's shallow coastal waters, and are one of several artificial island developments in Dubai. The World's developer is Nakheel Properties, and the project was originally conceived by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.

As of 2010, only a single island had any building on it, which was a show home - all the other projects having been cancelled or delayed due to the 2008 financial crisis. While the developer, Dubai government, and researchers from the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology deny it, a participant in a related law suit has alleged that the islands are sinking back into the sea.

Islands in the archipelago range from 14,000 to 42,000 square metres (150,000 to 450,000 sq ft) in area. Distances between islands average 100 metres (330 ft); they are constructed from 321 million cubic metres of sand and 31 million tons of rock. The entire development is an area that covers 6 by 9 kilometres (3.7 by 5.6 mi) and is surrounded by an oval-shaped breakwater island. Roughly 232 km (144 mi) of shoreline was created. The World's overall development costs were estimated at $14 billion USD in 2005.

The project was unveiled in May 2003 by Sheikh Mohammed and dredging began four months later in September 2003. By January 2008, 60% of the islands were sold, 20 of which were bought in the first four months of 2007. On 10 January 2008 the final stone on the breakwater was laid, completing development of the archipelago.

The Times Online reports in September 2009 that work on The World had been suspended due to the effects of the global financial crisis. And in February 2010 the Daily Mail reported that the Islands have started sinking back into the sea. This was later denied by Nakheel and independent technical reports as wholly inaccurate. Despite the denial, The Daily Telegraph reported in January 2011 that an independent company, Penguin Marine, provided verification on the erosion of the islands and the silting of the passage ways between the islands. Due to finance and technical problems Penguin Marine, the company contracted to provide transportation to the archipelago, is attempting to get out of the annual fees of $1.6 million paid to Nakheel properties.

As of early 2011, only one of the islands is occupied by a building (a show home) on it, and commercial or residential properties are not currently being constructed on any of the other islands. Property prices in the Emirates have fallen 58 percent from their peak in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The World was serviced by four major transportation hubs linked by waterways. Land parcels are zoned for various uses: estate, mid density, high density, resorts and commercial. A Dubai Infinity Holdings

construction planner has stated that developers have been negotiating with Nakheel about temporary siting of a cement batching plant on one of the islands to supply subdivided construction.

Utilities are routed underwater, with water plants at each of the hubs pumping fresh water to the islands. Power is supplied by the Dubai Grid and distributed through underwater cables. Waste water and refuse systems are an individual concern for each island.

Nakheel Group is itself further developing a resort named Coral Island over 20 islands that make up the North American part of The World. The low-rise development will include a marina and hotel village. The second largest confirmed development is the purchase of 14 islands that make up Australia and New Zealand by Investment Dar of Kuwait. The islands are being terraformed to be developed as a resort named OQYANA. Irish business consortium Larionovo had plans to develop the Ireland island into an Irish-themed resort. The plans include a large internal marina, apartments and villas, a gym, hotel, and an Irish-themed pub. In July 2007 it was announced that the Ireland Island would feature a recreation of Northern Ireland's Giants Causeway. However on 25 November 2008 a provisional liquidator was appointed to Larionovo.

In April 2008, Salya Corporation announced that it had acquired the islands of Finland and Brunei in The World and planned to develop them into fashion-themed resorts. Salya spent about Dh800 million ($218 million USD) to purchase the islands and plans to spend a further Dh2.4 billion ($654 million USD) on development. Brunei Island will be turned into a Fashion TV resort and Finland Island will be turned into a fashion community called FTV palace.

The islands of Great Britain and Moscow on The World were acquired by Premier Real Estate Bureau in the summer of 2008. The news was leaked in a Daily Mail article of January 2009, refuting claims that Great Britain was owned by Irish investor John O'Dolan, Richard Branson or Rod Stewart. Safi Qurashi, the one-time multi-millionaire entrepreneur at the head of Premier and his business partner Mustafa Nagri, paid an estimated $64 million USD for the 11-acre (45,000 m2) piece of land; he was later convicted for non-payment of cheques and sentenced to seven years in jail. The Irish businessman John O'Dolan, who purchased the "Ireland" island, committed suicide in February 2009, after his consortium fell into financial difficulty.

Undeveloped islands of The World in May 2007

An air view of The World in 2010

The Universe Archipelago The Universe is a planned artificial archipelago in the shape of the Milky Way and Solar System, that would be built off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The project was announced in January 2008 by the developer Nakheel, which also built the Palm Islands and The World archipelago. It was stated to be completed sometime between 2023 and 2028, but as of 2009, the project has been placed on hold. The dredging companies Van Oord and Jan de Nul, the same companies used for the Palm Islands and The World, will create up to 3,000 hectares of land.

The Universe is to be located between the Palm Jumeirah, The World, the Jumeirah coast and the Palm Deira.

The Universe project was in the planning stages, but was placed on hold in 2009. Nakheel's website continues to list The Universe as a "future project".

*Most material from Wikipedia