Palm Deira Developments

Reclaiming 4,000 hectares new land

Our client
Nakheel, the property developer in Dubai, wanted to establish world-class tourism in the oil emirate. As part of a wider government plan, it envisioned a number of amazing artificial islands that would host beaches, hotels, private villas and businesses.

Nakheel awarded Van Oord the Deira Islands project in August 2003. Extending from the Deira Islands will be the palm-shaped Palm Deira island. When in November 2005 Nakheel awarded Van Oord the construction of Palm Deira, it was the biggest land reclamation assignment in history.

Our work
The artificial island together with its fundament of the 5 Deira Islands will be the home to a city for 500,000 people. It will have a total surface of 4,000 hectares of reclaimed land, the equivalent of the city of Paris.

The Palm Deira will be 12.5 km long and 7.5 km wide and will feature leisure, residential and tourist development. The dredging and land reclamation for Palm Deira will entail moving about 1.14 billion m³ of sand. More than 110 million tons of rock will be used for the surrounding breakwater, which protects the island from strong currents and winds.

Van Oord is using a broad range of equipment, from small to jumbo-sized trailing suction hopper dredgers. In addition, Van Oord will manage the rock transport from harbour to project site and will employ a range of its rock barges, tow tugs, side stone dumping vessels and split barges to position the various layers of rock for the surrounding breakwater.

Our results
It will take ten years for Van Oord to create these unique islands in the sea. With Palm Deira in place by the end of 2013, the Dubai coastline will have increased by approximately 226 km, including 121 km of beachfront.