The modern man has reached such a stature in creating wonders that now it is not a big deal to challenge nature and create man made landforms as well. A glaring example of this fact are the two man-made islands of Dubai, namely the Palm Jumeirah and the Palm Jebel Ali. The biggest benefit of these two islands in the economy of Dubai is that not only they attract tourists but also given sufficient increased space to accommodate these tourists by increasing the coastline of the rich city.
The list of wonders of these two man-made Palm islands does not end by only being man-made artificial islands. In addition, these islands also have a shape of a palm tree which is surrounded by a crescent. There is no other country in the world which has attempted to fulfil such a daunting task apart from this one. Both these Palm islands have all modern facilities like luxury hotels, residential villas, entertainment options, apartments, shopping malls, and so on. The number of hotels which are proposed to be a part of these megaprojects are more than 100 in number.
The task of tackling the uncertain Persian Gulf and creating these two man-made wonders has been given to a Belgian and a Dutch company namely, Jan De Nul and Van Oord. The reason that they were chosen for the task was that they are expert in the process of land reclamation which was the essence of this job too. The work on the Palm Jumeirah is known to have started in 2001 to finish in 2006 and the Palm Jebel Ali took time from 2002 to 2008. The task of building the landforms on the sea has been done by spraying massive amounts of sand with the help of dredging ships and also placing a massive number of rocks with the help of cranes. The total amount of sand known to have gone for the Palm islands has been 94 million cubic metres because as per the King of Dubai, the islands needed to be made from sand.
In order to retain the position of the Palm Islands there has been an inclusion of a semi circular crescent which makes a break in the water and which increases the coastline of Dubai too. This breakwater has been essentially made with rocks whose amount reaches 5.5 million cubic metres. While the breakwater of Palm Jumeirah is 11 kilometres and increases the Dubai coastline by 78 kilometres, the Palm Jebel Ali is a bigger project and thus has a breakwater of 17 kilometres. The only flip side of these wonderful creations is that though all sorts of precautions have been maintained while constructing them but, there still remain the threats caused due to erosion and natural calamities.
The Palm Jebel Ali being the bigger amongst the two Palm islands also has a higher number leisure options like water theme parks, sea villages, marinas, and so on. These Palm islands are connected to the main land with the help of monorail which is by far the best means of commuting.