Coastal coral reef in Arabian gulf between Ras al-Khafji and Ras Tannurah biogeography and marine environment protection study

Abstract EN

This research concerned the coastal reefs in the Arabian Gulf between Ras Al Khafji and Ras Tannurah, to identify the current status of the coral colonies, their geographic distribution, their most important forms and the impacts that affected them.

The research is based on the descriptive approach by studying the environment of the coral reefs in the Arabian Gulf, knowledge of the coral species, and it was also based on the spatial analytical approach when studying the geographical distribution of coral reefs by analysis of the images of Landsat 8 OLI using ArcGIS 10.2.2 and Erdas Imagine 2014.

Different processing techniques were carried out over the six images, such as : rectification, masking, water column correction, classification, and coral areas survey.

The statistics of coral reef obtained from supervised classifications of 2016 in the study area was 78.3 km², which are scattered spots close to the coast except the area between Ras Al Khair to Abu Ali Island, which it is one of the richest areas in coral reefs.

The most important coral species that resisted the environmental changes are Favia spp.

and Porites compressa.

It was also found that oil pollution and the climate change are the most important environmental pressures that have affected the species composition and reduced the area of coral reefs.