Desert Garden, a newly-built public park by the Public Parks Department, in Al Sheehaniya.
The Center for Geographical Information Systems at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has developed a search option supported map which gives information and exact locations of picnic places in the country including public parks, beaches, islands, natural reserves, green lands and farms.
The link of the search engine (http://www.gisqatar.org.qa/parks/ ) has been shared at a time when a large number of people (citizens and expatriates) visit picnic places due to pleasant weather.
As of now the map is in Arabic, but when you browse on desktop or on Android phones it will auto translate using ‘google translate’. Currently the translation is not available on iPhone.
The search option supported map is attached with a detailed map of Qatar listing names of the places which will help to find the targeted areas. The map is showing the places in multi-layers by names of farms, municipality, public parks, beaches, Rawd (green areas), islands, natural reserves and agricultural complexes (Al Adhab).
The users can click in the search box to find their target place as the ‘showing all’ option of the search gives list of the places. The users will have to click their targeted place to go to the map for getting details about the location. A total of 96 public parks, 12 beaches and the same number of natural reserves are included in the search engine which are located across the country.
The number of public parks in Qatar has doubled in the past five years across the country to accommodate growing number of visitors. Public parks attract large number of visitors specially in the winter when the temperature became moderate. The Public Parks Department at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment built a total of 51 new modern parks and renovated the old ones during past five years according to an earlier report issued by the Ministry
According to the report, public parks reached 40 — the highest number — in Doha Municipality, followed by Al Rayyan Municipality which has 20 public parks. There are seven public parks each in two municipalities — Al Khor-Al Zakhira and Al Daayen.
Al Wakrah and Umm Salal Municipalities received six public parks each. Al Shamal Municipality got five public parks. There are three public parks in Al Shihaniya. New parks are part of a major project of the Ministry of Municipality and Environment to build modern public parks and upgrade old parks across the country to accommodate growing number of visitors.
The new public parks were built according to the international standards. Park facilities include modern play areas equipped with various varieties of games and rubber floor for the safety of the children.
Pergolas (shades) at the parks were designed specially giving touch of Qatari heritage to make the parks more beautiful. There are fountains and artificial waterfalls at public parks. Facilities of public parks were also equipped with free wifi connection and solar-powered mobile charging stations.
To make the public parks modern, safer and durable lamp posts have been set up at the parks. To protect the environment, lighting system are fitted with energy saving bulbs. Many solar-powered system were also installed.
To encourage people for physical exercise, playgrounds for most popular games like football, basketball, volleyball were built and fitness equipment were installed at some public parks, Doha Corniche and other places which attracts big number of sport lovers, said the report. MME said that special walkways were developed for joggers at public parks and separate lane was made for cyclists at places.
