Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.1.
In 2000, Dubai was an isolated triangle of urban development in the Arabian
Desert. In just ten years the view from space was transformed as Dubai boomed on a
mixture of tourism, trade, and oil production. Today, city blocks are surrounded by green
land irrigated with desalinated seawater and the coastline is dotted with artificial islands.
Source:
NASA/USGS.
The history of human civilisation is recorded in land. Satellite images have only been
available for a few decades. If we were able to compare images of the Earth's surface
taken from space over a much longer period, we could trace the advance of technological
civilisation. Over the course of five millennia, humans have carved out fields, felled
and burned forests, dammed and directed rivers, drained marshes, and dug mines. Even
a millennium ago, the impact of human activity would have been visible from space,
thanks to forest clearances in Europe and Asia. Two hundred years ago vast patchworks of
