Dubai has become one of the most attractive locations for real estate, finance, technology, trade, business, luxury, foreign investments, fashion, and, of course, tourism. Its oil wealth has made its rich inhabitants’ dreams come true. Known for its lavish royal family, luxurious police supercars (Bugatti, Lambhorgini, and the like), 7-star hotels, opulent Emirates Airline, human-made islands, and the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa, Dubai is a breathtaking place to visit.
However, Dubai’s relationship to the environment is problematic as its avant-guardist ambitions clash with the persistence of a sustainable environment and, therefore, a sustainable future. Among other practices, the artificial islands off the coast of the city have grave environmental consequences, such as excessive use of natural resources, the slow decline of biodiversity, along with the extinction of wildlife and vegetation. These consequences are hidden by extensive propagandizing of the innovative accomplishment, and by the lavish lifestyle of the “City of Gold” shown all over social media: luxury, haute couture fashion, an important technology and business hub, influencers, western businesspeople, and the home of the rich and famous. The ecological warfare brought on by Dubai’s artificial islands is certainly not excused by its extravagant lifestyle – meant to attract many tourists, foreign investors and social media attention. It is therefore important to shed light on what is perpetually hidden in this “playground of the rich” and bring a realistic point of view to the ecological destruction caused.
Dubai’s economy has effectively shifted from oil-based to tourism-based in the last decades. In fact, “with the introduction of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) in 2004, Dubai developed as a global hub for service industries such as IT and finance.” This boom has brought Dubai’s most prevalent businesspeople and policy-makers to focus most on the city’s accumulated wealth by diversifying its economy in tourism and real estate – two of the most crucial pillars of Dubai’s fortune today. In fact, to this day, Dubai’s oil-wealth only accounts for 1% of the city’s GDP (projected to trend around $541.29 billion CAD in 2022) while tourism accounts for 20% of the latter. The city has invested in groundbreaking and innovative tourist attractions, hotels and apartment complexes, and of course its world-renowned Emirates airline, adding its touch of luxury and exclusivity for each. For instance, in 2021, Dubai merged its economy and tourism departments into one to enhance the city’s competitiveness and expand foreign trade. Dubai is projected to attract 25 million tourists in 2025, according to crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed. It is therefore self-explanatory that the artificial islands have been a massive success in Dubai, attracting foreign investments and tourists.
Dubai has four areas of human-made islands, all with particular themes and extravagant appearances: Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira, The World Islands, and The Universe Islands (the latter is a recent project yet to be accomplished between 2023 and 2028). Each island ranges “in size from 5 to 20 acres, and with 50 to 100 meters of water separating each island”. In fact, Palm Deira has a larger land mass than Bora Bora (46.35 km² versus 30,55 km² for Bora Bora). Among the four agglomerations of artificial islands, Palm Jumeirah is the most known, as it is the first project to have been undertaken in 2001. This made Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s vision a reality, and was supported by government-owned-company Nakheel in Dubai.
Despite the widespread attention and praise for the construction of these artificial islands – proving that Dubai can indeed have dominion over nature – the islands are extremely harmful to marine life, the ecosystem, and biodiversity in the UAE. Dubai is the new “Las Vegas” in terms of excessive energy and natural resource use; the average water consumption in Dubai equates to 550L of water per person (2019), and the extensive use of marine sand and sediment to build the islands has negative effects on Dubai’s ecosystem. For instance,“The World” alone cost $14 billion USD (about $17.83 billion CAD), and caused many negative repercussions in Dubai’s marine life: the waters have become clouded with silt, stifling a marine life that once was extremely abundant. For example, oyster beds have been covered in as much as two inches of sediment.
The environmental consequences of the artificial islands, along with rising sea-levels, non-renewable petroleum resources, premature erosion of construction materials, and the global effects of climate change – accentuate Dubai’s ecological problems and further impact future sustenance. Despite the UAE’s abundant sand reserves, the artificial island projects have chosen marine sand instead, as a way to have a more solid base. However, “According to […] the researcher Bayyinah Salahuddin, Dubai’s beaches lose between 10,000 and 15,000 cubic meters of sand each year. The Palm Jumeirah construction, which has affected the natural flow of the wind, has caused the tides to increase this rate of erosion. The result is that marine sediment deposits have moved 40 kilometers over a five-year period. This is detrimental to marine life, as oyster beds and coral reefs have been completely buried in the thick sediment. Moreover, as a consequence of this, The World Islands in particular are at risk of sinking as the sand used to construct the islands is gradually disintegrating back into the sea, pushing construction companies to re-extract the sand from the seabeds, furthermore destroying the minimal marine life left.
Aside from obvious environmental degradation, there is hope in this situation as possible solutions exist – such as shifting investments from harmful projects to sustainable ecological ventures, using oyster shells to rebuild Dubai’s coastline, and ultimately limiting ocean exploitation. These possible solutions can have sustainable and viable outcomes. However, what incentives are there for Dubai to ever prioritize ecological matters over its thriving tourism industry? Until this question is properly addressed, the city is unlikely to change its course of action.
Edited by Robyn Matthews
Carla is a U2 student at McGill studying International Development in the Honors Program with a concentration in Environment. She’s a citizen of the world; as she has French nationality, is of Italian descent, was born in Sweden, lived in the USA and is now living in Canada! Some of her main interests include human rights and most particularly women’s rights, climate change mitigation and poverty alleviation.
Rightly so, there has been this debate about the ecological degradation of these artificial islands since quii a while, but what is made is made you can’t just deconstruct with has been the driving force of its tourism and investment driver, but now the leadership has finally realized the buz word sustainability in its approach to things & there is a mass effort to rehabilitate and retrofit Dubai’s future development plans in the next 40 or so years, there will be an extensive mass transit system extension, all new projects will have to have leed or green Innciative stamp, having a green cover over the city plus pedestrian friendly approach to all infrastructure programs…..