Monitoring and Environmental Characterization of the Nearshore Arabian Gulf: A Benthic Foraminiferal Perspective

As a result of continuous natural and anthropogenic activities along the coastlines, living benthic foraminifera are increasingly used to monitor, characterize and generate a baseline understanding of changes in natural marine environments. Environmental changes in the coastal marine setting are caused by changes in water quality resulting from industrial, domestic and natural pollution effluents. Foraminiferal responses to such changes are quick, measurable and observable. They respond to environmental changes in the form of community level structural and compositional change, diversity decrease, an increase in numbers of opportunistic species, increased frequency of test deformities, and mass mortality. Foraminifera have proved useful in understanding accelerated impacts of global warming and ocean acidification, which have been shown to be a result of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. The Arabian Gulf offers a natural environment to the study the complex interplay between anthropogenically induced nutrient gradients, stress (salinity and temperature) and the adaptive responses of foraminifera. We propose to undertake a benthic foraminiferal distribution survey from various sedimentary environments along the Arabian Gulf coastline of Saudi Arabia, from the Kuwait border to the United Arab Emirates border. The main objective of the study is to understand environmental parameters that influence the foraminiferal distribution patterns in the region. Sediments in the Gulf are repositories for heavy metals and other environmental contaminants supplied through discharges from industry and shipping activities, and as such, this research will define a benchmark database that could be utilized for future environmental monitoring in the region.