The Sustainable Environmental and Economic Development (SEED) project was undertaken towards remediation and rehabilitation of the Kuwait Oil field’s abandoned production areas.

The objective of the rehabilitation component of the project was to leave areas of the oil fields that were contaminated, in a relative natural state. To this end, the rehabilitation component of the project included a native plant restoration and monitoring program with the purpose to evaluate the effectiveness of restoration methods, namely the use of irrigation and soil amendment.

Because established criteria for planting the rehabilitated features was used, there was some control over certain variables that could affect plant establishment, such as species selection, site preparation, spacing of plants, and frequency and amount of irrigation. However, other variables not controlled could have also affected plant establishment, and played a role in the results of this project. Differences in site conditions (i.e. location, aspect, wind, natural rainfall), soil texture and micronutrients, and the propagation and handling of plant material (in the plant nursery and during planting) could be confounding factors, together with irrigation rate and soil amendments.

Several lessons learned were identified from this study and may be worth consideration in future restoration and rehabilitation of decommissioned facilities and/or disturbed landscapes across Kuwait oil fields.

Primary Author/Presenter:
Najeeb Al-Zaid
Sr. Engineer Projects
Kuwait Oil Company
Ahmadi
Kuwait

Co-Author:
Mansour Al-Khareji, Kuwait Oil Company