OIL-POLLUTED SAUDI-ARABIAN BEACHES - SITUATION ONE-YEAR AFTER THE CATASTROPHE

The Gulf war left 650 km oiled Saudi-Arabian beaches. After a first ex amination in summer 1991 in January/February 1992 24 stations were inv estigated. The oil pollution is some few up to some hundred meter wide and extents from an unusually highly situated high water line in dire ction to the low water line. The oil burden is between 2 and 20 kg/m2. In the past 6 months the situation has got stuck and at the same time consolidated. Stuck, because the tar and asphaltous masses formed can hardly be attacked biologically and physically, consolidated, because the ecotoxicological influence to adjacent unoiled areas has become l ow. The only observed self remediation process is bound to cyanobacter ial mats. It is limited to the regularly inundated zone.