Offshore sand supply is running out

Every day the Ham 318 dredger sails from the coast of Dubai to a constantly extending location more than 25km offshore, where it sucks up 23,000m3 of sand from the seabed, before returning to deposit it on the site of Palm Deira.

It is a process that has been duplicated up and down the coast of Dubai since the launch of the original Palm island five years ago. Today, dredgers like the Ham 318 are removing more than one million m3 of sand from the seabed of the emirate