Friday, December 07, 2007

Beach mystery solved

I was musing last month on 'Another beach mystery'.

I saw lots of sand being moved about on Umm Suqeim beach, huge bags being filled with it, gangs of workmen, construction machinery, trucks etc. I wondered what was going on.

Tody Gulf News has the answer, in a very interesting article 'Saving Dubai's Beaches'.

The sea is eroding the coastline, as it does quite naturally. We also have the changing water movement caused by the huge offshore developments and the artificial breakwaters.

Apparently the 5-tonne bags of sand are placed about 100 metres from the shore to form protective groynes.

Of course it isn't that simple, a complex tracking system is involved to determine exactly what's happening so that engineers can work out the best solution.

The full article and the photos are well worth looking at.

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