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Flooding spotlights Dubai construction quality

17 April 2024

Commentary
Colin Foreman
Editor

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The storm that engulfed Dubai on 16 April and the resulting flood damage will raise questions about the quality of construction in the emirate.

Videos of extensive flood damage to property and infrastructure have been widely shared across social media, and those personally affected have questioned why the damage was so severe.

There is not one single answer. The storm was said to be the most severe to have hit Dubai for decades, and some have described it as a 100-year storm. One other theory widely circulated during the day about it being caused by cloud seeding has been officially dismissed by the government.

With such extreme weather, most will accept that some damage is inevitable. The question will be whether elements of the damage could have been prevented, which is where questions over construction quality will emerge.

The two main concerns will be why buildings are not better waterproofed and infrastructure is not more effectively drained.

Each flooding incident will have its own specific issues, but the reasons will come from three key areas: design, construction and maintenance. 

Many projects will not have been designed to cope with such a deluge. Others will have been poorly constructed, allowing water to ingress into properties, and others will have drainage that was poorly maintained and failed when it was most needed.

Dubai is heavily incentivised to address these concerns. In the past, Dubai has been a transient city with many expatriates living and working in the emirate for only a few years. There has been little collective memory of major weather incidents.

As the emirate establishes itself as a permanent home for more people, including many property owners, that memory will now remain. Those memories may be painful today, but they will help guard against such severe damage in the future.

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Colin Foreman

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