Photo of the Day 397

Burj-al-Arab Hotel, Dubai, U.A.E., 2002

Photograph by Peter Essick

In bone-dry Dubai, luxury hotels like the Burj-al-Arab prove that water's no problem when money's no object. Flush in oil and cash, Persian gulf governments can afford to do what most water-scarce nations can't even image: desalinate seawater for almost all their freshwater needs.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Water Pressure," September 2002, National Geographic magazine)