Seminar Details

Two years since the Evrona oil spill: An ecological overview

Date

23/03/2017

Lecturers

Nitzan Segev - Mitrani Dept. of Desert Ecology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Abstract

In December 2014, the Ashqelon-Eilat oil pipe burst and 5 million liter of crude oil spilled and entered the Evrona nature reserve. About half of the contaminated oil was removed with the soil that absorbed it. The other half is still in the soil. The Nature Protection Authority of Israel is examining various ways of managing the left behind contaminated oil and in the meanwhile we examined the effect of the oil on the diverse ecosystem, based on Acacia trees. A similar oil spill occurred in 1975, and contaminated an adjacent are. The findings from the 75 survey indicates that germination of acacia trees is lower in the contaminated area, and the tree size parameters were smaller in the contaminated area. Therefore, a long term monitoring (5 years) has started, examining many environmental parameters, conducted by many expert scientists, and organized by the "maarag". The different parameters are soil (physics, chemistry, and microbiology), invertabrates (such as ground insects, mesofauna, bees and wasps, spiders, scorpions), reptiles, bats, rodents and birds. The 5 year monitoring is comparing the recovery of the areas with the new oil spill to unaffected areas and to the 1975 oil spill area.

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