Looking at the Environmental Impact of Palm Jumeirah
UN scientists say that although the waters off Dubai’s coast will never again be what they once were, the Palm Jumeirah offshore 
structure is creating a new complex marine ecosystem despite years of disruptive construction work.
The United Nations University’s International Network on Water, Environment and Health, commissioned by the Palm developer Nakheel, compiled a report on the effects of the project.
They concluded that marine life is slowly returning to the coastline.
“They are developing into very interesting rocky reefs,” said the chief scientist behind the research, Dr Peter Sale, a marine ecologist.
Dr Sale is the assistant director of the United Nations University network, which has worked with Nakheel since early 2007. The goal of the collaboration is for the scientists to pursue a long-term environmental monitoring programme and a sustainable management plan for the waters surrounding Nakheel’s man-made islands.
Nakheel’s decision to build a series of structures along Dubai’s coastline has drawn criticism from conservationists opposed to the environmental cost of the projects, such as large-scale destruction of coral reefs and changes in water flows.
The Palm Jebel Ali, for example, is being built in a formerly protected area, the Jebel Ali Marine Sanctuary. The area was given legal protection in 1998 on the grounds that it housed one of the Gulf’s richest marine ecosystems, with 34 coral species and 77 species of reef fish. To mitigate the damage it has caused, Nakheel financed a scheme under which the Emirates Marine Environment Group, an NGO, transplanted corals elsewhere.
Despite initial positive results, the long-term benefits are still unknown.
Yesterday, the UN scientists acknowledged that the ecosystem that existed off Dubai’s coast has been lost forever.
“There are certainly going to be differences,” said Dr Ken Drouillard, associate professor at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Biological Sciences at the University of Windsor, Canada, who participated in the study.
“Much more complex habitat characteristics were present in the past.”…MORE
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Tags: Chief Scientist, Conservationists, Coral Species, Destruction Of Coral Reefs, Environment Group, Environmental Monitoring, Man Made Islands, Marine Ecologist, Marine Ecosystem, Marine Ecosystems, Marine Environment, Marine Sanctuary, Offshore Structure, Palm Developer, Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Jumeirah, Reef Fish, Research Dr, Rocky Reefs, United Nations University
