A CAMEL sniffs at the black pond and turns away. Still on the lookout for food, it ambles past a felled electricity pylon towards a line of bombed-out tanks and armoured vehicles. This is the edge of the Burgan oilfield south of Kuwait City, a landscape of dead clumps of grass caked in tar.
Four years after Saddam Hussein鈥檚 forces were harried from Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War, the desert state is still a mess. Dozens of oily lakes dot the landscape, and the fallout from oil fires smears much of the rest. Gravel beds that once held the desert sands in check have been fractured by bunkers, weapons pits and trenches, and the tracks of fleets of tanks and trucks have compacted fragile soils and killed vegetation.
In 1991, the Kuwaiti government asked the allied armies to make a detailed inventory of damage to the desert as they cleared away the debris of war. The allies logged bunkers and trenches, counted tank tracks, and measured barbed wire barriers. Then the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of the Sciences commissioned an analysis of the ecological importance of the damage, and an assessment of priorities for rehabilitating the desert. The study, which used remote sensing images as well as field data, was coordinated by Farouk El-Baz, a geomorphologist who runs the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University in the US, and carried out by scientists from the Kuwaiti Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). It is one of the most prompt and thorough official investigations ever of the longterm environmental impact of a war.
Advertisement
But the damage it identifies was not caused by war alone. The study also pinpoints harm caused by Kuwait鈥檚 peacetime activities in the desert, and makes controversial recommendations about minimising their effects in future. The report remains partially under wraps and, while KISR scientists have presented some of the material to conferences, the full text will not be published, say government scientists. Visitors are allowed to read the report and take notes, but that is all.
One of the abiding images of the Gulf conflict was Saddam鈥檚 sabotage of some 800 Kuwaiti oil wells. The resulting fires sent thick clouds of black smoke across the country. Many detonated wells did not burn, however. Instead, they poured their unburnt oil across the desert, forming hundreds of black lakes in its shallow depressions, some up to a metre deep and a kilometre long. According to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the lakes at one point covered 49 square kilometres of desert and contained 55 million barrels of oil.
Kuwait鈥檚 first postwar priority was to put out the fires and resume full production of oil, the resource that makes the country one of the richest in the world. It took six months and $1.5-billion for firefighters to extinguish the fires, and $10 billion to repair the wells. The plan was also to cleanse the desert of its oil lakes. 鈥淲e have to get rid of this problem in the next year or so,鈥� Mohammed Ali Abbas, a senior executive at the KPC, told journalists in April 1992. But that has not happened. According to Raafat Misak, an Egyptian geomorphologist who moved to Kuwait in 1992 to help compile the Boston study, the company has so far drained just over 200 lakes, leaving at least another 100 that contain between 3 and 4 million barrels of oil. Moreover, draining the oil does not solve the problem. The drained depressions still contain a thick, waterproof lining of tar on the bottom, penetrating up to 1.5 metres into the sand, so the depressions fill with oily water after every rainstorm.
The head of KISR鈥檚 environment and earth sciences division, Dhary Al-Ajmy, sees no immediate solution. 鈥淭here may be mines in the tar,鈥� he says. 鈥淪o it is dangerous to scrape them clean.鈥� He suggests that biological treatment using oil-eating bacteria might help. But official urgency to find a solution appears to have evaporated, even though the Boston study warns the oil is likely to seep into groundwater.
Before the war, the desert supported a mixture of perennial shrubs and annual grasses that sprouted during winter rains. Now much of the area around the oilfields is blanketed in oil, or 鈥渙il-logged鈥�, as the Boston study puts it. In this condition the soil loses its porosity and, as the study says, is 鈥渃ompletely dead鈥�. At the Burgan field, which produces around a million barrels a day and is the second most productive oilfield in the world, 13 per cent of the sandy surface is oil-logged. A further 11 per cent has been contaminated by a mist of unburnt oil.
Black blanket
In this area, undisturbed desert contains a 23 per cent cover of vegetation, according to the study. But this figure falls to 12 per cent where there is soot, and to zero where there was oil mist or oil logging. Among the worst affected plants has been arfaj (Rhanterium epappossum), a shrub used widely by the local Bedu people for fodder and fuel. It was adopted in 1983 as Kuwait鈥檚 national emblem. Despite the oil, Misak expects plant life to return. 鈥淢uch of this polluted desert will eventually rehabilitate naturally,鈥� he says. But his greatest concern is the war鈥檚 impact on the physical structure of the desert, especially its thin but fertile soils. Here, he believes, damage has been done that nature may never put right. The competing armies have transformed large areas. 鈥淏efore the war, the desert ecosystem was a fragile but relatively stable equilibrium,鈥� says Misak. 鈥淏ut the soil structure in many places has been destroyed.鈥�
Most of the Kuwait desert is covered by a fiat gravel pavement, a natural 鈥渄esert shield鈥� made up of pebbles ranging from the size of a pea to a walnut. This stable layer of gravel, which is often covered with a thin layer of sand or soil, holds moisture and allows vegetation to grow. It also prevents erosion by keeping loose sand covered, so sand dunes do not normally form. But the bunkers, trenches and pits broke through the shield, exposing vast reservoirs of fine sand beneath. Before the shield was breached, says the Boston study, less than a quarter of the surface material was erodible by water or wind; now it could all disappear. Another vast reserve of loose sand was the material the troops excavated and left piled up on the desert surface. In the winter following the liberation it was used to refill the holes, but Misak believes that by then at least 5 per cent of it had blown away, and is now permanently loose in the desert.
Almost half of the excavated material was in the northeast of the country. Up on the Jal Az-Zor ridge, looking south across Kuwait Bay to Kuwait City, you can see why. Thousands of Iraqi troops dug in along it during January 1991, because Saddam expected 鈥� wrongly, as it turned out 鈥� that allied troops would stage a marine landing in the bay. The ridge is rich in wildlife, and is the centrepiece of the country鈥檚 only national park. Eagles soar above it during their spring and autumn migrations through the Gulf (see Map).
After the war, surveyors counted 214 000 bunkers, trenches and pits in northeast Kuwait. On the ridge each square kilometre averages more than 200 bunkers and other holes. The Boston study says that 鈥渕ore than 20 per cent鈥� of the desert suffered from 鈥渋ntense surface disruption鈥�, and the effects of this can be seen clearly just south of the ridge. Here some 30 new dunes have formed in the past four years. They are textbook crescent-shaped features, their tips pointing away from the prevailing northwesterly wind. The biggest are already more than 50 metres long, 20 metres wide and 2 metres high. 鈥淏efore the war there were no dunes here. We can see that from aerial pictures,鈥� Misak says. 鈥淭here wasn鈥檛 enough loose sand. But now sand blowing off the broken escarpment provides ample material.鈥�
Aside from the northeast of Kuwait, the main centre of destruction is the country鈥檚 western plain. Here the two main processes of desert disruption are clearly visible. First, the breaching of the desert pavement and liberation of loose sand, and secondly the compaction of desert surfaces by vehicles. The Iraqi army brought 3500 tanks and 4000 other vehicles into Kuwait, and the allied forces used similar numbers. In the immediate aftermath of the war, scientists at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge suggested that ruts from vehicles might 鈥渃hannel moisture and run-off, encouraging the colonisation of desert shrubs鈥�. But there is little evidence of such benefits, except in the oil-logged areas, where vehicle tracks have broken caked oil off vegetation. Instead, says the Boston study, vehicles have crushed plants and compacted the desert surface, reducing its ability to absorb rainwater.
鈥淭he biological potential of soils decreases, and plant cover deteriorates,鈥� says Misak. 鈥淚n many places desert soils are drying out because of the compaction. Where there are tracks, annuals sprouted this winter; but perennials are largely absent.鈥� Reduced infiltration means that more rainwater floods across the desert surface after the occasional heavy storm, causing greater erosion and deeper gullies.
Ironically, about the only protection for desert ecology in the war zone was provided by mine fields, according to Mane Al-Sudairawi of the KISR. Iraqi troops laid more than a million mines in two defensive lines along Kuwait鈥檚 175-kilometre border with Saudi Arabia, from the Gulf shore to Wadi Al-Batin. The mines kept vehicles and grazing animals away, and protected the natural vegetation. But after the liberation, when the mines were cleared, the impact on the desert was devastating. Misak says that huge stretches of desert were ploughed up as teams searched for the mines and detonated them. He says the result was 鈥渃omplete destruction of the vegetation cover鈥� along a band that averaged 500 metres wide.
Permanent damage
In a second phase of desert repair, troops filled trenches and pits. This reduced the amount of sand free to blow around, but it could not re-create the structure of the soil. 鈥淭here is no gravel pavement now to retain moisture, and vegetation will not grow,鈥� says Misak. As plants appeared after the recent seasonal rains, the sites of the refilled bunkers and pits were clearly visible as light patches of sand entirely devoid of vegetation. 鈥淭he gravel pavements were created in wetter times by fluvial processes; says Misak. 鈥淭here is no way nature will recreate them now. This damage is permanent.鈥�
Farms, military bases and other human settlements in the desert have also been damaged. Troops based on the farms diverted well water normally collected for irrigation, and wrecked irrigation systems as they ripped up pipes. Debris dumped in the fields did further damage. Typical is a farm just north of the Jal Az-Zor ridge, which is still surrounded by yellow, rusting Iraqi trucks and broken electricity pylons. Inside, repairs have brought water back to a few plots, where onions and alfalfa now grow. But most of the farm鈥檚 date palms are uprooted or dead. Iraqi troops cut down trees for firewood during the unusually cold winter of their occupation, and prepared others for felling by digging trenches round their roots. An estimated 20 per cent of the country鈥檚 cultivated trees have been lost. This threatens further desertification, as their roots helped to bind fragile soils. Ominously, a high sand dune looms behind the back wall of the farm.
At an experimental farm in the Burgan oil field, there are still thick pools of tar in the gardens, and charred stumps of palms. Much of the Abraq farm settlement in the far west is gutted and sealed off because of fears that the area may still be mined. Outside the gate, a lone shop sells provisions to troops on their way to the nearby UN border post.
But Kuwaitis can鈥檛 blame the war for all the desert鈥檚 ills, the Boston study says. As the international task force has withdrawn, the government has wound down many of its own projects for desert rehabilitation. Even the easy jobs remain undone, the report notes. The allied forces carefully assembled the abandoned tanks, trucks and buses in neat pounds in the desert, ready for collection and disposal. But more than three years after the completion of this operation, most of these large piles of scrap metal remain. The Boston study warns that they will pollute the desert with rust, leaked fuel and heavy metals, and recommends their immediate removal. Then there are the massive defensive embankments being built across more than 100 kilometres of western desert by the Kuwaiti military. In 1990 they had to stand by as Iraqi troops were able to reach Kuwait City within hours, and the embankments are designed to prevent any repeat performance. Near Abraq, the road to the border crosses three such barriers: they are about 5 metres wide and 3 to 4 metres high, and often have a trench in front. 杏吧原创s at the KISR display photographs showing mini-dunes forming in the lee of the barriers, and marking a wide disturbed zone where bulldozers have broken up the desert pavement. 鈥淭hese barriers will certainly create more sand dunes,鈥� says Misak.
Finally, there is the ambiguous attitude of most urban Kuwaitis. For them, the desert is part valued cultural and natural heritage, part junk-filled backyard. They trace their ancestry back to camel herders, and in spring head into the desert in their tens of thousands for a fortnight under canvas. They are returning to nature. No matter that they drive there in the family Landcruiser and usually pitch their tents within a kilometre of a main road. Nor that they are likely to be within sight of several lines of electricity pylons 鈥� to sustain an energy consumption equal to that of all the African nations between the equator and South Africa, which between them support more than 100 times as many people as Kuwait.
The Kuwaiti government does not appear to have grasped the impact that activities of its own citizens have on the desert. While it was Iraqi troops who broke down the fences round the desert national park of Jal Az-Zor, it is the Kuwaitis themselves who have left many of the fences down. Along the ridge, campers, camel herders and off-road drivers continue to flow through broken fences and into the national park. 鈥淭he spring camps are destroying the desert,鈥� says Misak. 鈥淭hey leave tracks everywhere and destroy vegetation.鈥� Campers also leave behind large amounts of rubbish, which blows out of the camps across the desert. Any walk away from the roads brings frequent encounters with plastic bags and shotgun cartridges, Marlboro packets and water bottles. And all this after the Boston study identified 鈥渞egulating off-road vehicles in highly disturbed areas鈥�, as a priority, and describes the park鈥檚 state as 鈥渃ritical鈥� and a 鈥減riority for protection鈥�.
But the manner of Kuwait鈥檚 modern economic development is clearly an even greater threat to the conservation of the desert. Kuwait City has no fewer than seven major ring roads. some with eight lanes. On current and prospective oil fields, the oil industry鈥檚 writ is supreme. The British town planner Colin Buchanan observed in a master plan for the state in 1983: 鈥淭hese areas, where they are not already built over, are reserved solely for oil uses.
There are few efforts to protect the desert from the more destructive and cavalier forms of economic exploitation. Quarrying for sand, gravel and limestone is big business. Just outside the broken fence of the national park, trucks lumber down dirt tracks, taking gravel to help rebuild the Subiyah power station, which was destroyed during the war. Soon they will be taking much more gravel for a planned new town at Subiyah. Their dust can be seen for miles, and shows up on visible satellite images as a series of large grey smudges.
Clearly Kuwait needs material to rebuild. But there are few signs that it is trying to minimise blown sand or damage to the desert. The Boston study says abandoned quarries are 鈥渨idely distributed in the desert鈥�, and calls for them to be restored so that they no longer 鈥渁ct as dust bowls during windy periods鈥�. The study identifies 168 pits covering more than 8 square kilometres within the oilfields alone.
For a nation in which more than 95 per cent of the population lives in urban areas, the amount of intrusion in the desert is remarkable. More than a decade ago, Buchanan warned: 鈥淧ressures for development will increase and it will be essential that these are resisted if the natural assets of the rural and coastal areas are to continue to be available for the benefit of everyone.鈥� Most visually intrusive are the electricity pylons; seven lines of them extend west along the main road to Salmy alone, even though there are no settlements of any size that way. All the lines, says Misak, go to military installations.
Most of the study鈥檚 recommendations are unfulfilled. While the country has worked hard to rebuild its prestige buildings and bring the oilfields back on stream, its other great resource 鈥� the desert 鈥� is given little attention. But the study warns that Kuwait cannot go on as it did before the war. 鈥淭he prewar irrational activities, such as overgrazing and extensive spring camping, have become incompatible with postwar conditions,鈥� it says. Kuwait has yet to come to terms with this message.