Abstract
This assessment of environmental drivers and phytoplankton community in Kuwait (Arabian Gulf) arises from a scenario in which the rapid urbanisation in recent decades has caused significant changes from pre-industrial conditions. To present these changes, we have analysed a long-term water quality dataset (1984 – 2017) and explored potential changes in a sub-set of phytoplankton community data by analyzing ten years of phytoplankton data available (2007 – 2016) for Kuwait Bay and the Northern Gulf waters. The longer-term water quality data shows that dissolved nutrient concentration, with the exception of a recent fall in SiO4, have been increasing over 30 years but with a high degree of variability reflecting the changing rate of inputs from coastal pollution and the Shatt Al-Arab River. The correlative analysis between the environmental parameters and phytoplankton in the period from 2007 to 2016 show the seasonal variability of the phytoplankton are influenced by several factors stressors including higher temperatures, coastal sewage runoff, and changing salinity. Whilst the rapid and extended nutrient enrichment data move Kuwait coastal waters into a eutrophic state, the temporal patterns highlight that recent changes in phytoplankton community are more likely to be responding to cumulative pressures of eutrophication, climate and salinity changes. The seasonal and temporal changes in the coastal phytoplankton community, alongside long term deteriorating water quality present management challenges of managing local and external pressures. Continued declines in water quality within a system that is influenced by a warming climate can potentially have long-term consequences on the resilience of the Northern Gulf environment.
Highlights
The Arabian Gulf, a shallow (35–40 m average depth), semi-enclosed marginal sea, is characterized by extreme natural environmental conditions and severe anthropogenic pressures (Sheppard et al, 2010)
We review the historical trends in environmental variables, including dissolved nutrient concentrations, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and chlorophyll from 1983 to 2016 to assess the scale of change, the persistence of eutrophic conditions within Kuwait Bay and the Gulf and how the local and regional drivers influence the phytoplankton community
Temporal Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) models are reported for each of the water quality parameters, as per the methods described in Devlin et al (2015a), with an additional 6 years added to the longterm analysis of environmental parameters reported in Devlin et al (2015a) and Lyons et al (2015) (Figure 3)
Summary
The Arabian Gulf ( known as the Persian Gulf and hereafter referred to as the Gulf), a shallow (35–40 m average depth), semi-enclosed marginal sea, is characterized by extreme natural environmental conditions and severe anthropogenic pressures (Sheppard et al, 2010). Sheppard (2016) and references within identified local and global impacts as the main causes of environmental damage on the marine Gulf ecosystems. Kuwait experiences a wide range of environmental conditions, with temperature and salinity being at the extremes of known conditions (Riegl, 2003; Riegl and Purkis, 2012; Devlin et al, 2015b), atmospheric fallouts carried by North Western dust storms and particulate matter derived by river transport from the Shatt Al-Arab and increasing coastal pollution (Sheppard, 1993; Sheppard et al, 2012; Al-Sarawi et al, 2015). Coastal water quality issues are significant for Kuwait, with many sewage outfalls discharging directly into the marine environment that are either not properly treated or illegally bypassing the sewage treatment facilities (Lyons et al, 2015; Saeed et al, 2015)
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