Presenter
Mx. Zainab Ashkanani, WEF Nexus Research Group - Texas A&M University
Co-author(s)
Dr. Meshal Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos University
Dr. Rabi Mohtar, WEF Nexus Research Group - Texas A&M University
Sub-theme
3. Building Resilience for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation
Topic
3-5. Monitoring and early warning of water-related disasters
Body
Oil pollution is a long-term persistent issue that has a serious impact on natural ecosystems. Remediating large-scale oil contamination sites has added a financial burden on developed and developing countries around the world. There is also a limited understanding of the global role of soil contaminants, nutrients, and vegetation coverage, which limits the predictive understanding of pollution extension and climate feedback. Monitoring the remediation efficiency in large field settings depends on using the traditional field analysis methods that are time-consuming and associated with high costs. Thus, there is growing momentum to address current and emerging threats to the environment using innovative technology. Remote-sensing approaches are powerful techniques, providing valuable monitoring tools for assessing soil quality and health. They have promising potential to be used for monitoring remediation efficiency in contaminated fields, preventing emerging disasters, and managing natural resources and ecosystems. To improve the monitoring system, we used multi-source data integrated system to study Kuwait’s Greater Burgan oil field, the second largest oil field in the world. The system integrated field analysis, remote sensing, and GIS to map alteration zones in the studied area and to monitor hydrocarbons, metal content, minerals, and analyzed images to correlate those stressors to native species’ relative coverage. We tested chemical remediation technology for the removal of heavy metals, total petroleum hydrocarbons, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the oil-contaminated soil. We used traditional analytic methods to analyze the effectiveness of our remediation system to ensure its performance within optimal parameters and minimize the risk associated with the treatment. Incorporating remote sensing with chemical remediation gives a powerful insight into the successful implementation of the treatment method in the field. The results showed that the level of residual hydrocarbons and metal contamination exceeded the risk-based residential and industrial soil screening levels across all site-related contaminants allowing their migration to groundwater. Our method is an effective tool for quickly evaluating and predicting soil health, pollution spread, vegetation coverage, and remediation efficiency in large-scale oil-contaminated fields. Eventually, it has the potential to present an early warning system for soil and groundwater pollution.