This is the United Arab Emirates.

When you think of the U.

A.

E.

The first things you probably think about are tall buildings, ridiculous islands and lots of sand with very hot temperatures.

One of the last things that you would ever expect to find here is a giant iceberg floating right by the coast.

But if one guy has his insane plan workout that could all change in the near future.

The U.

A E is a country that has experienced enormous success within the past few decades.

The Emirati economy today is nine times larger than what it was just 40 years ago, back in 1980 it's now become the fourth largest economy in the Middle East, ahead of other countries that are significantly larger and population like Egypt or Iraq.

And because of this ever booming economy, workers and economic migrants have been flowing into the country for decades now, which has swollen the desert country's population to never before seen heights.

In 1975 only 558,000 people lived inside of the u A e.

But just over 40 years later, in 2018 that number skyrocketed to over 9.5 million people for every one person who lived in the U.

A.

E.

In 1975 there are now 16 Mawr people, and overwhelmingly, most of this new population have been immigrants coming from abroad.

Today, only 11.5% of the entire U.

A.

E s population are actually Emirati citizens.

The vast majority of people who live there, 88 0.5% are considered foreigners and have no citizenship, which gives the E the highest percentage of foreign born residents of any country in the world.

Save for Vatican City The flood of people into the country has done wonders for the Emirati economy by providing a source of plentiful cheap labor, but it's brought a number of other problems along with it, namely water.

The U.

A.

E is a very hot, dry country in the desert, where annual rainfall only averages less than five millimeters along the coast, where most of the population is concentrated, and as such, the U.

A.

E has extremely limited water.

Resource is, and one of her most critical problems is providing enough for her growing 9.5 million residents.

To solve this problem.

The U.

A E currently relies extremely heavily on a network of more than 70 water desalination plants located across the coast.

The transformed salty ocean water into potable everyday use water.

42% of the U.

A.

E s water supply currently comes from these desalination plants, which is so much that despite being a relatively small country, the U.

A E produces 14% of the entire world's desalinated water.

The problem with this strategy is the desalination is both a very expensive process and an environmentally destructive one.

It causes the surrounding water around a plant to be significantly saltier than it would be naturally, which is harmful to surrounding marine life.

There are therefore many arguments that have been made for an alternative solution to the nation's water crisis, but perhaps the most insane of all of them was proposed by this guy, Abdullah Al Shahi.

For years now, he's been pushing with all seriousness to send a tugboat to Antarctica, find a chunky iceberg and tow it all the way back to the U A E to harvest it for its freshwater locked inside.

So how crazy is this idea?

In reality, According to Al Shahi, the iceberg will be selected beforehand via satellite and will probably be a pretty chunky one up to two kilometers long by 500 m wide.

Once the tug boat has sailed over and secured it, it'll take approximately 10 months to sail back to the U.

A e with it attached, where it will come to rest just three kilometers offshore by the city of Fujairah.

In order to keep the iceberg from simply splitting apart and drifting away in different chunks as icebergs air prone to do, the tugboat will utilize a metal belt that will wrap around the water to keep it all together.

But despite this, the team expects that around 30% of the icebergs mass will melt during the 10 month journey before it even reaches the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, where the average annual temperature is 26 degrees Celsius.

Now, obviously, a big iceberg in the desert is gonna melt pretty quickly, so the plan is to deliver it at the beginning of winter, which is only slightly less hot.

But they'll immediately begin mining it for water the day that it arrives.

According to Al Shahi, the iceberg should be capable of providing clean and fresh drinking water for one million people in the U.

A.

E for five years after its delivery, which, if true, would seriously really the pressure on the nation's water shortage.

In addition to that, the project is claimed to be both cheaper and more environmentally friendly than current desalination techniques, because all you basically need is a boat, a crew and a belt with 10 months time and then a bunch of miners compared with the start up costs and horribly expensive ongoing costs associated with the desalination plants.

And it's easy to see how an iceberg melts.

Fresh water into an ocean would be more environmentally friendly than a plant that pumps more salt back into it all shall.

He also claims that a cold iceberg could positively influenced local weather patterns and lead to more rainfall on the coasts.

Finally, the prospect of setting foot on the iceberg itself and experiencing a bit of glacial tourism in the Persian Gulf is a weird novelty that a lot of people would probably pay for to experience, which could further enhance the US already strong tourism portfolio.

Perhaps the idea of hauling an iceberg from Antarctica to the Persian Gulf for water isn't so insane oven idea.

After all, if the project is successful, it could have enormous implications for the rest of the Middle East and the entire world beyond fresh water.

Resource is are expected to grow evermore scarce as the world's population continues to explode and the demand grows ever higher throughout the course of the 21st century.

So who knows?

Maybe in the future will see entire fleets of tug boats from countries across the world making the journey to Antarctica to set up iceberg trade routes back to the mainland's.

A new age of Antarctic colonialism could become the future of the 21st century, with countries vying for one of the few remaining vast reserves of freshwater left on the planet.

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