Hamdan approves AED35mn project for maritime facilities

Dubai / WAM

HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality, approved a AED35 million project for periodical maintenance of marine facilities and coastal protection for the next two years.
Hussein Nasser Lootah, Director-General of Dubai Municipality, said that the approval comes as part of the special attention given by the municipality to marine facilities and beaches due to its tourism and commercial importance.
He explained that as a body responsible for the management of public beaches, Dubai Municipality exerts maximum efforts to ensure the sustainability of the marine and coastal environment and continues to propel development to support the emirate’s Vision 2020.
Lootah said that the project includes preventive and corrective maintenance of marine facilities of the municipality, maintenance of beaches and coastal protection facilities, pollution prevention barriers, swimming barriers and floating anchors, within the time frame of a specific programme, in addition to work orders as and when needed.
Alya Al Harmoudi, Director of Environment Department at Dubai Municipality, explained the dynamic characteristics of the coast of the emirate, in addition to its exposure to the seasonal northerly storms that lead to erosion of large amount of sand, estimated to be 30,000 cubic metres per year, causing erosion of beaches, which in a way poses a threat to the residential, service and tourist infrastructures at the beach.
“Understanding this risk, the municipality has pushed itself in the past to formulate plans for coastal protection and maintenance, which is still going on,” said Al Harmoudi, quoting several examples that included restoration and development of Umm Suqeim beach, which was enriched with nearly 500,000 cubic metres of high-quality beach sand and protected with a number of coastal barriers.
“Similarly, a new beach was also developed in Al Mamzar Corniche, enriched with about 250,000 cubic metres of sand. Sufouh Beach was also enriched with about 100,000 cubic metres of sand to protect the facilities overlooking it, in addition to the carrying out of other works such as installing protective barriers against pollution, providing safe limits for swimming, and the development of marinas for boats and entrances to the beaches for people with special needs, as well as improving the facilities at the fishermen’s port,” she said.
Al Harmoudi added that this project will straight away start inspecting the state of the facilities at the sea and coastal areas such as wave barriers, sea buoys, barriers for safe swimming limits, protective barriers against pollution, sign boards and navigational aids and prepare periodic reports on the situation.