Measurement of seasonal variability of hydro-environmental characteristics of Kuwait Bay

Abstract

To fill in the large existing data gap, this study presents results of a comprehensive data set from Kuwait Bay (KB), showing the horizontal and vertical distribution of its prominent hydrodynamic variables (i.e., water temperature, seawater salinity, seawater density) and water quality variables (i.e., chlorophyll-a concentration, turbidity, dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration, DO saturation, apparent oxygen utilization, photosynthetic active radiation). Field measurements were carried out between 11 September 2014 and 17 August 2015 covering number of monitoring stations in the entire bay. The results revealed significant seasonal variations and apparent three-dimensional features of the measured variables exemplifying the necessity of not considering the bay as a well-mixed water body in the future oceanographic studies anytime of the year. However, well-mixed conditions (with the Brunt-Vaisala frequency of about 0.0002 s−1) were existent only in the winter. Bay’s water column began stratifying in late spring, and these were significantly intensified (with the Brunt-Vaisala frequency of about 0.0008 s−1) during the summer and early autumn. The stratification, together with the increase oxygen demand for decomposition processes and decrease in DO solubility in summer, led to the formation of a lower DO water mass (daytime DO concentration <4.2 mg l−1) at the lower layers. Results also suggested that the water of the KB is more transparent (indicated by lower turbidity) compared to the adjacent sea water. Measurement of light intensity along the water column indicated that the light extincts rapidly (i.e., the light reduced to approximately 10 % of the surface values at water depth of 2–6 m) in KB and many times absent at the water near the seabed. This study also suggested that the KB can be classified at a year-round negative, hypersaline, inverse, and hyperpycnal estuary.