The population of this island nation of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf has increased fourfold since the early 1980s. It increased to 1.5 million in 2022. The demand for land has grown as urbanisation and population density have both increased.
According to Eman Ghoneim, a physical geographer at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, “Like other countries in the [Persian] Gulf, rapid population growth and the simultaneous increase in urbanization, along with land scarcity, has pushed Bahrain to invest in mega land reclamation projects to extend its coastline.”
These photos document developments over a 35-year period. On August 17, 1987, the Thematic Mapper on Landsat 5 took the very first picture. The second image was taken on August 17, 2022, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard Landsat 8.
The King Fahd Causeway, which opened in 1986, connected Bahrain Island to Saudi Arabia just recently, in 1987. According to news estimates, a record 2.5 million motor vehicle passengers used the 25-kilometre (16-mile) stretch of road in July 2022.
The north of the nation is where change is most noticeable since shallow coastal waters there have allowed it both physically and economically possible to create new land from the seafloor. Not only are new islands being added, but current ones are being expanded in size.
Geographic information systems and remote sensing expert Sabah Aljenaid of Arabian Gulf University categorised changes to the land between 1986 and 2020 using Landsat pictures. Aljenaid and colleagues discovered that built-up (urban) areas, which grew by 7.5 per cent annually on average, dominated the changes over this time. The increase mostly came at the expense of wetlands and vegetated land.
Aljenaid emphasised Muharraq Island’s rapid growth, which has increased its size to more than 60 square kilometres (23 square miles) northeast of Manama, the country’s capital. She also referred to the island of Nabih Saleh, which has undergone changes and lost its agricultural lands.
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Although the north has seen the most urban growth, there have also been changes along some of the southern coastline. Dredging for the Durrat Al Bahrain man-made islands started in 2004, and by 2007 the southeast coast of Bahrain had gained an additional 5 square kilometres (2 square miles) of land.
According to a research done ten years ago by John Burt, a marine scientist at New York University Abu Dhabi, 11 per cent of Bahrain’s island is made up of reclaimed land. It is unknown how Bahrain will look in 35 more years. The idea of constructing a bridge over Fasht Al Adhm to Qatar was discussed often, according to Burt. “It has not come to fruition, but it may be a future mega-development to watch out for.”
(with inputs from agencies)
