Dubai: Corals from a reef off Jebel Ali are going to be relocated to Jumeirah as the sedimentation caused in the area from offshore projects is slowly killing them.
Sand-coated corals near the Palm Jebel Ali and Waterfront development will be moved to more tranquil waters opposite the Dubai Ladies Club in Jumeirah where environmentalists are confident they will survive.
Coastal dredging to clear harbours and provide beach sand generates huge muddy plumes for corals. In Jebel Ali, frequent water analysis found sedimentation was coating corals with up to several centimetres of fine sand.
Cloudy or turbid water diminishes the amount of light available for photosynthesis by symbiotic algae that live within individual coral animals, and can also bury coral colonies, killing them.
Al Murjan, the Dubai reef rehabilitation project was launched yesterday as part of the Shangri La and Traders hotels corporate social responsibility action to preserve a marine ecosystem.
Low water circulation
The Emirates Marine Environment Group will oversee the coral propagation and transplantation to the site, approved by the Dubai Ladies Club.
In 2008, around 11,000 corals from the Ghantoot reef were already relocated to an area north-west of the Palm Jebel Ali and recorded a high survival rate.
Ali Al Suwaidi, chairman of the Emirates Marine Environment Group (EMEG) said if the corals are not moved they will be destroyed. Because water circulation is low around the trunk of Palm Jebel Ali, instead of being flushed away sand is building up and coating the reef, he said.
Corals will be relocated over several stages starting in early November. Forty two-tonne caprock stones, a naturally occurring rock of cemented sand, will be transported from Ghantoot by barge and dropped off at the new reef site.
The reef will lie at five metre depth and over 100 metres from the ladies club beach. In the second stage 100 brain (Faviidae), table (Acroporidae) and lesser starlet (Siderastreidae) coral colonies will be collected by EMEG from the natural reef and transplanted to the caprock stones.
Have you heard of similar relocation projects? How did the corals fare?
