THE ANTHROPOGENIC EFFLUENTS OF THE HUMAN ACTIVITIES ON THE RED SEA COAST AT HURGHADA HARBOUR (CASE STUDY)

THE ANTHROPOGENIC EFFLUENTS OF THE HUMAN
ACTIVITIES ON THE RED SEA COAST AT HURGHADA
HARBOUR (CASE STUDY)
HASHEM ABBAS MADKOUR AND MAHMOUD A. DAR
National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Hurghada, Red Sea.
[email protected]
Keywords: Sediments, seawater, coral reefs, Hurghada, human activities, heavy metals.

ABSTRACT
The heavy metal accumulations in the seawater, coral reefs and two effective fractions
of underlying sediments (<0.125mm and < 0.063mm) were studied in the coastal and tidal flat zones at the main shipyard near of Hurghada Harbour. The area of investigation is very worse whereas, it is considered tailing outlet for both solid and liquid influents of many human activities in/and surrounding the harbour. The solid phases are of construction remains, paint remains, iron pipe rusts, hydrocarbons, plastic bags, metal and wood remains as well as the artificially conglomerate stones that thrown in the in the marine area. The liquid phase is restricted in the continuous brine water draining to the sea from a huge desalination plant (Capacity 5000 cubic meters of freshwater daily) and the bilge water of the boats cooling engines in the mooring zone inside the shipyard marine area. The recorded metals show significant declination seaward in both seawater and sediments. The highest values of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni and Cd in the seawater were recorded at the outlet point of the desalination plant pipeline while the highest values in the sediments were recorded at the beach zone whereas the dumped materials were concentrated. The finest fraction sediments (<0.63mm) recorded high concentrations of the toxic metals; Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni and Cd than the coarsest one. Pb in sediments recorded high reading in the boat mooring zone in the two sediment fractions relative to the beach zone and inside the sea. The recorded coral reefs are new generations (recruits) mostly of the massive forms. These corals were growing over; conglomerate stones, rusted iron plates, plastic remains and car tires dumped to the zone. The metal concentrations in these corals are high relative to their age and the recorded metals in world. This study indicated that some coastal activities as; the shipyards and desalination plants are environmentally antagonistic and must be monitored continuously in order to decrease their effluents to the tidal flat zones. Also, it is obvious that the new coral generations are able to accommodate with the inconvenient conditions.