SANITARY CONDITIONS IN 3 CREEKS IN DUBAI, SHARJAH AND AJMAN EMIRATES ON THE ARABIAN GULF (UAE)

A one-year monitoring program was carried out to assess the degree of pollution in three creeks on the northern coast of the United Arab Emi rates (UAE), through measuring for chemical nutrients such as phosphat e, ammonium, nitrate, nitrite and dissolved oxygen, in addition to enu merating selected microbial communities such as the heterotrophic bact eria, salt tolerant heterotrophic bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria, to tal coliform and faecal coliform bacteria. The results indicated that Dubai and Sharjah creeks have occasional unusually high nutrients leve ls with sharp fluctuations and wide spatial and temporal variations, s uggesting the presence of an anthropogenic sources of pollution, creat ing these conditions, near the sampling sites. These sources includes several wastewater outlets and recreational facilities. Ajman creek ha d much less nutrients levels. The microbial counts in the three creeks had a distinct pattern where numbers peaked in mid spring (May) and a utumn (October) and were relatively low during the summer and winter m onths. Total and faecal coliform fluctuated depending on several facto rs including the presence of nearby recreation and commercial areas, b ut were at no time consistently high. It was concluded that there is n o major pollution problem in these creeks and recommendation were made to prevent it in the future.