Environmental Consequences of the Gulf War in Kuwait: Impact on Water Resources

Abstract

As a result of the Iraqi occupation and the armed conflict in Kuwait 6 to 8 million barrels of crude oil were spilled into the marine environment, and about 2 to 3 million barrels of crude oil, burnt and unburnt, were being emitted daily during about 300 days into the environment from the burning or gushing oil wells. International efforts of UN agencies and other organizations from, the region and outside started immediately to assess the extent of the environmental pollution and to mitigate the adverse effects. In addition to the public health concerns of the air pollution caused by the burning wells, long-term environmental risk should be considered as a result of the oil spill into the marine and coastal environment, and the atmospheric fall-out, e.g., acid rain and petroleum related compounds associated with airborne particulates, in the marine and terrestrial areas. Particularly serious contamination of the desert ecosystem occurred around the damaged oilfields in Kuwait. The deposited crude oil and airborne particulates in the terrestrial areas may also affect the ground-water aquifer. Air quality, marine and desert soil pollution surveys provided data for a preliminary assessment and helped the formulation of mitigation and rehabilitation programmes, however, implementation of an integrated survey programme will ensure the final impact assessment on the environment, particularly on the marine and subsurface water resources.

Evidence of hydrocarbon contamination from the Burgan oil field, Kuwait—Interpretations from thermal remote sensing data

“…4-7). Selective ground truth has been carried out by Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (Literathy, 1992(Literathy, , 1993Al Sarawi et al, 1998;Kwarteng, 1998Kwarteng, , 1999AlDousari, 2001). The intra-image LST variations were verified from the collated ground truth data (Fig.…”

A modeling procedure to predict cancer risks associated with inhalable oil dust from Kuwait oil lakes

“…The spilled crude oil was converted to a hard residue containing high concentrations of toxic PAHs (Literathy, 1992) due to the intensive evaporation and photooxidation processes typical of Kuwait's environment 2. A thin layer of fine dust that originated from nearby areas has been formed on the surface of oil lakes due to the high annual dust fallout in Kuwait [lmm/year, (Khalaf and Al-Hashash, 1983)].…”

“…Consequently, dry oil residues can be resuspended with dust by the action of wind erosion and reach human receptors. Literathy (1992) reported that, in some areas of Kuwait's desert, natural weathering has converted the spilled crude oil to a hard residue containing high concentrations of toxic PAHs. Although large amounts of oil from the lakes have been removed, the remaining portion has thickened as a result of long periods of weathering.…”

An overview of the oil lakes in Kuwait: The problem and remedial methods

“…The amount of burning and gushing oil from the damaged wells was estimated between 2 to 4 million barrels per day for a period of over 300 days. The total amount of oil spilled into the Gulf is estimated between 6 to 8 million barrels (2).…”