Ahmad A. Al-Naseem and Dana B. Al-Duwaisan
Kuwait, oil lakes, oil contaminated soil characteristics;, soil remediation
Oil lakes, a term introduced after the First Gulf War (1991) when more than 600 oil wells were set on fire. The gushed oil from Kuwait’s wells created what is known as oil lakes where unconventional oil fills natural depressions in the topography. However, even artillery trenches which even contained live ammunition were filled with oil. Since then, time and money have been spent to try and remove these oil deposits and decontaminate the soil beneath it. Recently, a joint project between the United Nation Compensation Commission (UNCC), Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP), and Kuwait University (KU) has been initiated to reassess the scale of contamination and characterize the oil lakes. Moreover, available remedial methods have been overviewed in an effort to seek better solutions. The objective of this study is to characterize oil contaminated soil by the assessment of its physical and chemical properties. The results estimate the contaminated volume to be between 16.5×106 m3 and 22.7 ×106 m3, and show that its chemical characteristics were highly affected and physical properties were heavily deteriorated. In addition to that the three major remediation types, physical/chemical, biological and thermal are overviewed with an example of each.
Important Links:
Go Back
