Arabian Canal

The Arabian Canal is a 2008 begun hydraulic engineering project in the Emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Idea and planning

Starting from the coast as part of the Dubai Waterfront project, the Arabian Canal to turn in a 75 km long loop, first to the south into the country and return to about 20 km lateral and multi- swing- course again north to the coast to the Persian Gulf to the west between the high-rise zone Dubai Marina and the sea water desalination plant to open. According to the plans of the project participants Limitless is expected to be a settlement of about 1.5 million people to the 140 -square-kilometer area of the channel environment, a number that can only be realized through selective high compression and high-rise cluster close to several sub-centers. The measures provided for construction prepared surfaces are specified with 33 miles of shoreline, mainly in the southern cross course.

The configured without locks channel will be between 75 m and 150 m wide and 6 m deep. It is not primarily a transport channel, but rather a landscape design Wasserflächenbau with marketing stinging African background, similar to the artificial land and coastal reclamation projects just off the coast. On the gently curving shores with some lake-like bulges caused thousands of shore land with direct access to the promoted in the Emirate of new waterway network or in equally attractive water near a hillside with panoramic view.

The pure sewer construction project should be completed by 2013, while for the urban development and construction of the newly created riparian zones ( up to 2 km depth terrain ) and small islands is estimated another 15 years. This planning is a result of the financial crisis over time so do not be recoverable. A special technical feature is a canal tunnel in the south channel course, with a small hill barrier is to be run at about 900 m in length. Planned are numerous distinctive bridges and many rising shore areas with rolling hills statements, some stepped terrace construction areas or boiler -like modeled bluff edges where even abandoned land come to offer.

Construction, construction progress

End of July 2008 there was the first bidder offering for the first section of the canal that once expected to cost a total of a sum of USD 11 billion. In October 2008, a section of the channel has already been tentatively dug, which had a circumference of 700 meters long, 200 meters wide and up to 45 meters depth. Here, more than 1.5 million cubic meters of earth were moved. The excavation of the entire channel should be more than 1 billion cubic meters, the material is used directly in the channel areas Landaufschüttung and varied rich terrain modeling.

In late September 2008 the contract for the first section of the building was awarded with a value of USD 2.1 billion. The excavated roadway consists of a length of nine kilometers, and will require an excavation of about 200 million cubic meters. The channel piece is up to 150 meters wide and has a depth of six meters, enough to allow boats to about 60 meters in length by flooding. The excavation is partially piled into hills up to 200 meters in height. The first section with the surrounding area is then immediately released to urbanization: here on the resulting 2200 acres of riparian zones already around 600,000 people are located.

Critics of the project argue that it is likely to come in the further away inland culverts sections to problems with water quality, because there is no natural water supply except from the lake.