Worried leaders there are floating increasingly radical proposals, from billion-dollar pipelines traversing hundreds of miles to creating artificial lakes.

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The gleaming white marble mosque conceived by the late Sheikh Zayed boasts a 61, 354-square-foot hand-knotted prayer carpet, 82 domes of various sizes and several reflective artificial lakes surrounding the structure.

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And artificial lakes have been banned.

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In 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) installed a series of electric barriers 37 miles downriver in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, an artificial channel that links the lakes with the Mississippi and its tributaries.

ECONOMIST: The Great Lakes