PHYTOMONITORING AND MANAGEMENT OF TAR PILES ON THE QATARI COASTAL MARSHES, ARABIAN GULF

Most of the shores in Qatar and other oil producing countries have had a long history of crude oil pollution from different sources. This pilot study was to assess the problem and suggest a management programme for disposing of the collected tar or lessening the impact of tar accumulation. The vegetation on the sites used for dumping tar was used in afield survey to identify bioindicators of tar pollution and of the natural recovery of polluted sites. The phytomonitoring results indicate that recovery of polluted sites can be quite rapid after clean-up and restoration To facilitate natural plant invasion and colonization, and the restoration of tar piles, the dumping sites must have plant communities with high species diversity and a high percentage of annual plants. Depending on the sand-tar ratio in the piles, artificial seeding of selected plant species (listed) can be applied by using species mixes or single species seeding. Management techniques are suggested to optimize the natural recovery and revegetation of tar-affected coastal marshes.