Under the personal direction, guidance and supervision of H.H. Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the President of U.A.E., starting in the late sixtees, great strides have since been made in the greening of the desert especially in the Abu Dhabi Emirate. Besides doing outstanding land scarping work in major cities like Al-Ain and Abu Dhabi, thousands of hectares of sandy desert lands along highways and major roads and around new townships have been reclaimed, afforested and planted in the last about a little over a decade. Most of the afforestation work has been carried out and is being maintained with artificial drip irrigation utilizing the locally available brackish underground waters.