Assessment of environmental impacts on coral reefs resulting from marina construction Umm Al-Maradim island, State of Kuwait

Other Title(s)

تقييم الآثار البيئية على الشعاب المرجانية الناتجة من بناء مرسى جزيرة أم المرادم، دولة الكويت

Dissertant

al-Saqay, Ahmad Fadil Jasim

Thesis advisor

al-Sammak, Amr Abd al-Aziz
al-Hazim, Shakir Hamzah

University

Arabian Gulf University

Faculty

College of Graduate Studies

Department

Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources

University Country

Bahrain

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2013

English Abstract

Coral reefs ecosystems in Kuwait are threatened and declined by environmental stresses and human disturbances.

Kuwait’s coral reefs are of international scientific interest since they exist in environmental conditions which believed to be extreme to allow corals to survive.

Coral reefs have biological and economical importance, thus, it is of prime importance to study and conserve coral reefs.

This research is aiming to highlight and assess the impacts of Umm al-Maradim Island Marina’s constructed in 2004 on the coral reefs by comparing available previous data and survey of Umm al-Maradim coral reefs carried out in 2003, i.e., before construction and new data collected in 2011.

Since Qaru Island has no marina, a comparison between available previous data of Qaru Island coral reefs in 2003 and new data for 2011 was performed as a control and compared with Umm al-Maradim Island.

Four permanent transect into 50 m interval parallel to the reef flat were established at two stations in each island.

Each site has two survey stations.

Each station contains two depths 2m (reef shallow) and 8m (reef edge).

In both islands the first station was in the south-east (leeward) and the second station was in the north-west (windward) position of the island.

The study revealed that the construction of Umm al-Maradim marina impacted on the coral reefs around the Marina.

However the impacts were not only from the marina, but also from other environmental stresses and human disturbances.

The leeward reef of Umm al-Maradim which is the nearest station to the marina was affected more than the windward reef.

The reef edge (8 m depth) was impacted more than the reef shallow (2 m depth).

The dead coral increased in Umm al-Maradim leeward reef and windward reef by 11.58% and 8.13% respectively, while in Qaru, the dead coral decreased by 5.50% in leeward reef and 16.78% in windward reef.

The live coral decreased in Umm al-Maradim leeward reef and windward reef by 19.57% and 17.88% respectively, while in Qaru the live coral decreased by 9.29% in leeward reef (which is much less than the decrease in Umm al-Maradim Island) and increased in windward reef by 11.18%.

Difference between the major (common) coral species is not significant between transects, but the non common species shown great differences between transects.

The branching Acropora coral was the most impacted among the coral species occupied the study area.

The dominant coral species in both islands in 2003 was Acropora sp., which was replaced by Porites sp.

as dominant in 2011 in both islands.

In order to conserve coral reef ecosystems it is recommended to enforce the legislation on coral reefs protection, also Kuwait coral Islands must announced as natural marine protected areas.

Main Subjects

Earth Sciences, Water and Environment

Topics

• Kuwait

No. of Pages

86

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-357879