Dubai To Spend Dhs6bn By 2025 To Become Green Paradise

Dubai Municipality has earmarked around Dhs6 billion for soft landscaping and an irrigation network in a bid to transform the emirate into a green paradise by 2025.

“We have plans for giant projects by 2025, which include the expansion of sewer lines and the irrigation network,” Salah Abdul Rahman Amiri, assistant director-general of Dubai Municipality was quoted as saying bye state news agency WAM.

He added that Dubai is also mulling a legislation, which would mandate the private sector –mainly large developers and private property owners- to share the responsibility in developing the city’s green areas.

The law, when it comes into effect, will make it mandatory to include green areas in private projects but the official said that the municipality would not want to impose such burden on the private sector.

“We’d rather have better awareness so that they understand it is good for the sustainable development of their projects as well,” said Amiri.

Dubai will spend around Dhs3 billion on improving and expanding the irrigation network by 2025 in a bid to increase the sustainability of landscape projects, the official said.

“We are having problems with sustainable landscaping. The challenge is mainly with water.”

The municipality currently spends around Dhs300 million annually for soft landscaping, which includes maintaining small parks and roadside landscapes, WAM said.

According to a senior official, around 45 million flower plants were planted in 2013 in Dubai. The figure is expected to rise 10 per cent depending on the upcoming projects, the municipality said.

Further investment in landscaping services is expected to make the city bloom in the next 10 years.

According to Julfar, Dubai has around 20 to 30 small park projects in the pipeline to add to the green space of the desert city.

The emirate currently has about 7,000 hectares of green space developed jointly by the municipality and the private sector.