Titre de la thèse : « Impacts du changement climatique sur les iles artificielles aux Emirates Arabes Unis: évaluation de la durabilité face aux enjeux géologiques »,
“Climate Change Impact on UAE Artificial Islands: Assessment of Long-term Sustainability against Geological challenges”
sous la direction de Kosmas Pavlopoulos (Sorbonne-Université Abu Dhabi).
Résumé/ Summary
At the beginning of the 21st century, UAE experienced a frenzy of architectural records with the first projects of artificial islands. Palm Island, World Islands, Das Island are examples of the new construction for developing the coastal zone infrastructure for both touristic purpose and Industrial Purpose. The investment in the man-made islands technology -which has become the UAE strategy in the last two decades- is facing a sustainability challenge against the climate change impact.
The challenge of infrastructure sustainability against climate change is on different fronts of impact reduction (social, economic, environmental, political, geological, etc.). The current research proposal focuses on the geological/geotechnical one for a special type of construction technique, which is the artificial islands.
It is to highlight that the literature considers special features of climate change impact on the marine environment (Physical/Chemical Environment, Social/Politic Environment), due to the complex behavior of the sea-zone. The coastal zone –as transition zone- presents more challenges as it compiles both the land features and marine features. However, the climate change factors such as the sea-level rise and the carbonate excess impact as well the coastal soil materials, and its behavioral phenomena, which is having lack of research works at a refined scale.
The idea of this research proposal is present a focal contribution to the research community as it assesses the geological vulnerability of this special type of projects from a refined scale, for more sustainable considerations during the design stage.
Mots clés/ Key Words: Artificial Islands, UAE, Climate Change, Sea-level rise, Liquefaction, Carbonate Content, Soil Strength Reduction, Reclamation.