Extending the Design Life of the Palm Jumeirah Revetment Considering Climate Change Effects

Abstract

This paper presents potential upgrades to the Palm Jumeirah Island’s outer revetment to extend its design life for 50 years, considering the sea level rise (SLR) associated with climate change. The paper proposes several upgrade options to ensure that the hydraulic stability and wave overtopping discharges of the Palm Jumeirah revetment comply with the recommended design criteria based on industry guidelines. The performance of the existing revetment, in terms of the hydraulic stability and wave overtopping discharge criteria, is assessed using design wave heights (1- and 100-year events) extracted from an extreme wave analysis study on the Dubai coast. The results show that, based on the new design conditions, the existing structure should be upgraded to meet the armor stability criteria and recommended overtopping discharge values. Three different upgrade solutions are designed and analyzed to satisfy the required hydraulic stability and overtopping conditions. The suggested upgrade options are an extra armor layer, a flat berm, and a submerged breakwater offshore. The proposed upgrade solutions are preliminary designs that would require verification in terms of their geotechnical stability and physical model testing to evaluate their performance.