ABU DHABI // A two-year soil survey of the Northern Emirates has identified 28 soil types, with Ras Al Khaimah having some of the soils best suited to agriculture.
The Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD), in collaboration with the UAE Ministry of Environment and Water, recently released the results of the survey.
Funded by the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, the survey will create a database of soil types that will aid in land-use planning and agricultural expansion in the Northern Emirates. Officials said the results would help farmers, planners and developers to better evaluate the potential of soil for agriculture and engineering purposes.
"Soils in the UAE are not just sand," said Darryl Lew, executive director of the environment quality sector at EAD. "Many of the soils are suitable for agriculture, construction and aggregates."
The survey covered Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, which together make up 8.2 per cent of the country's area. The survey analysed soil at 10,000 sites between 500 metres and 1,000 metres apart, up to a depth of 200 centimetres.
"Soil and water are critical resources and it is amplified today when we talk about food and water security," Mr Lew said. "The soil survey of the Northern Emirates is a first very accurate and robust inventory of one of the leading natural resources."
Information from the survey can be used by the farming community, decision makers, land-use planners, officials, engineers and environmental-impact assessors.
The area surveyed covered 401,283 hectares across the five emirates.
“We did not map mountain tops and urbanised areas,” Mr Lew said. “We mapped vegetation and found that 40 per cent of the Northern Emirates is covered in natural vegetation.”
The survey was completed using the norms and standards of the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, modified to fit the conditions of the Northern Emirates. The project also produced a soil map of the UAE by compiling results from this survey, the 2010 Abu Dhabi soil survey and the soil map of Dubai developed in 2003.
A total of 65,000 sites were classified and added to the database of results. Various thematic maps, such as irrigated suitability, soil salinity, current land use, land degradation and vegetation are also included.
“Our environment, being in an arid zone, faces many challenges,” said Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, secretary general of EAD.
“Of these, the degradation of our land and natural resources poses the biggest threat to a sustainable environment. Mitigating this threat requires knowledge of our soils.”
In total, 89 soil types were identified in Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates. About 13 per cent are suitable for irrigated agriculture, according to Dr Mahmoud Ali Abdelfattah, a scientist at the EAD and a member of the technical committee who worked on the survey.
The survey used geographic information systems, satellite image processing and field-mapping technology to produce a soil information system. It is internet-based and accessible via the EAD website www.ead.ae or the UAE Soil Information System www.uaesis.ae
UAE University, University of Sharjah and the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture – as well as institutions from the US, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand – contributed to the survey.
rruiz@thenational.ae
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The Written World: How Literature Shaped History
Martin Puchner
Granta
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
