The marine environment of the Arabian Gulf is becoming increasingly important in fulfilling social, economic, development and strategic objectives of the region. The gulf area is subjected to intensive and diverse human activities including: oil production, industry, air pollution,urban developments, and coastal activities. Human interventions have resulted in a series of direct and indirect impacts that now threaten the gulf ecosystem. The objective of this study was to define and quantify related and unrelated impacts of the 1991 Gulf War on the gulf marine environments in a trial to evaluate the effective assessment and management of the gulf resources. This attempt was achieved by carrying out spatial distribution of sequential extraction of heavy metals in the surfacial bottom sediments of the Arabian Gulf; and studying the environmental processes deriving and controlling lithofacies sediment groups (texture analyses, total aromatic hydrocarbons, organic matter content, and total carbonate). Results obtained have been used to assess short and long-term impacts of different pollutants on the marine and coastal ecosystems of the Arabian Gulf.

Eighty-four surface sediment samples were collected during LEG I of NOAA R/V MT.Mitchell cruise through February 1992, covering the entire gulf area using a Smith MacIntyre grab sampler. The investigated stations were geographically distributed along 15 cross-shore transects. Each individual sample was treated separately for determining the texture analysis, total organic carbon content, total aromatic hydrocarbon, and total carbonate content. An analytical procedure in sequential extraction of heavy metals has been used to study the different extracted phases of heavy metals Fe, Mn, Co, Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr and Pb. The use of sequential extraction procedures provide qualitative information that may allow the prediction of the biological availability, mobilization, and transport of heavy metals.

Mapping of mean grain size, carbonate content, total aromatic hydrocarbon (TAHC) and organic matter revealed distinguished distribution pattern. The most conspicuous change in carbonate content and organic matter occurs within the northern and southern parts of the gulf. The geographical distributions of the TAHC revealed low concentrations covering most of the study area. Only two high concentration batches were noticed between the Iranian and Arabian near shore areas reaching a very high concentration of about >100 micrograms per gram. The behavior of heavy metals concentrations levels in bottom sediments of the Arabian Gulf clearly indicated the difficulty of distinguishing between background and anomalous levels of heavy metal analysis. Factor and cluster analyses applications revealed that metals accumulation in gulf sediments proved to be strongly affected by the environmental controlling variables.

Multidata (geological, physical, chemical, biologica,l and socioeconomic) were analysed to identify and predict the environmental-related consequences resulted from main human intervention as well as from the oil spill of 1991 Gulf War. An interaction impact matrix (human activities versus environmental attributes) was constructed to identify and evaluate possible impacts, magnitude and importance on the marine and coastal ecosystem of the Arabian Gulf region.