Gulf of Salwah

Last updated August 13, 2019

The Gulf of Salwah (Dawhat Salwah) is the southern portion of the Gulf of Bahrain. The Gulf of Salwah is a narrow bay separating the peninsula of Qatar from Saudi Arabia. It is bordered to the west by a well-vegetated shoreland containing palm trees and reed beds. To the east are low cliffs and hills, with sand dunes and salt flats at the southern end.

The Gulf of Bahrain is an inlet of the Persian Gulf on the east coast of Saudi Arabia, separated from the main body of water by the peninsula of Qatar. It surrounds the islands of Bahrain. The King Fahd Causeway crosses the western section of the Gulf of Bahrain, connecting Saudi Arabia to Bahrain.

Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Whether the sovereign state should be regarded as a constitutional monarchy or an absolute monarchy is disputed. Its sole land border is with neighbouring Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monarchy Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its territory surrounded by the Persian Gulf. The Gulf of Bahrain, an inlet of the Persian Gulf, separates Qatar from nearby Bahrain.

Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a sovereign state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately 2,150,000 km² (830,000 sq mi), Saudi Arabia is geographically the largest sovereign state in the Middle East, the second-largest in the Arab world, the fifth-largest in Asia, and the 12th-largest in the world. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south; it is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland and mountains. As of October 2018, the Saudi economy was the largest in the Middle East and the 18th largest in the world. Saudi Arabia also has one of the world's youngest populations; 50 percent of its 33.4 million people are under 25 years old.

Geography

The Gulf of Salwah is an elongated bay extending southwards from the Gulf of Bahrain. It is about 80 km (50 mi) long and about 20 km (12 mi) wide at its widest point. To the west lies Saudi Arabia and to the east Qatar.^[1] The surface of the land surrounding the Gulf of Salwah is largely flat, covered with sand or pebbles. On the east side, there are sand dunes and salt flats at the southern end and low cliffs and hills further north on the west coast of Qatar, and this is the area where the main oilfields are located.^[2] On the west side of the Gulf the coast is sandy with high groundwater levels supporting extensive reed beds. There are shallow hypersaline lagoons, and low islands have appeared along the shore caused by changes of water level. The gulf itself is shallow with a base of sand and rock and meadows of seagrass.^[3]

Phragmites is a genus of four species of large perennial grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world. The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, maintained by Kew Garden in London, accepts the following four species:

Seagrasses are flowering plants (angiosperms) which grow in marine environments. There are 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families, all in the order Alismatales. Seagrasses evolved from terrestrial plants which migrated back into the ocean about 75 to 100 million years ago.

The northern part of the Gulf of Salwah is restricted by coral reefs and accumulation of sediment. This results in the Gulf having a very small tidal range (around 0.5 m (20 in)) and a high salinity, as water evaporates from the surface and the remaining water is not exchanged with less-saline water.^[4]

Fauna

The western shore of the gulf is a protected area known as the Gulf of Salwah Protected Area, and is designated as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area. It is the main breeding ground of the Socotra cormorant in Saudi Arabia. Other birds that breed here include the Caspian tern, white-cheeked tern, lesser crested tern and bridled tern. Migratory birds that overwinter here include the western reef heron, black-necked grebe, great crested grebe, Pallas's gull, slender-billed gull and Caspian gull.^[3]

Important Bird Area area recognized as being globally important habitat for the conservation of birds populations

An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations.

The Socotra cormorant is a threatened species of cormorant that is endemic to the Persian Gulf and the south-east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is also sometimes known as the Socotran cormorant or, more rarely, as the Socotra shag. Individuals occasionally migrate as far west as the Red Sea coast. Despite its name, it was only confirmed in 2005 that it breeds on the Socotra islands in the Indian Ocean.

The Caspian tern is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek hudros, "water", and Latin progne, "swallow". The specific caspia is from Latin and, like the English name, refers to the Caspian Sea.

The high salinity level of the Gulf of Salwah prevents growth of most corals, perforate foraminifera, scallops and gastropod molluscs such as Strombus , Xenophora and Conus .^[4]

Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Corals species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

Foraminifera are members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly an external shell of diverse forms and materials. Tests of chitin are believed to be the most primitive type. Most foraminifera are marine, the majority of which live on or within the seafloor sediment, while a smaller variety float in the water column at various depths. Fewer are known from freshwater or brackish conditions, and some very few (nonaquatic) soil species have been identified through molecular analysis of small subunit ribosomal DNA.

Scallop is a common name that is primarily applied to any one of numerous species of saltwater clams or marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families within the superfamily Pectinoidea, which also includes the thorny oysters.

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The Persian Gulf is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Hormuz and lies between Iran to the northeast and the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline.

Qatar is a peninsula in the east of Arabia, bordering the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia, in a strategic location near major petroleum deposits. Qatar occupies 11,437 km² (4,416 sq mi) on a peninsula that extends approximately to 160 km (99 mi) north into the Persian Gulf from the Arabian Peninsula.

The United Arab Emirates is situated in the Middle East/southwest Asia, bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, between Oman and Saudi Arabia; it is at a strategic location along the northern approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit point for world crude oil. The UAE lies between 22°50′ and 26° north latitude and between 51° and 56°25′ east longitude. It shares a 19 km (12 mi) border with Qatar on the northwest, a 530 km (330 mi) border with Saudi Arabia on the west, south, and southeast, and a 450 km (280 mi) border with Oman on the southeast and northeast.

The Kingdom of Bahrain consists of Bahrain Island and 33 of the 37 Bahrain Islands, lying in the Persian Gulf's Gulf of Bahrain off the north shore of Asia's Arabian Peninsula. Bahrain's capital city is Manama. The islands are about 24 kilometers (15 mi) off the east coast of Saudi Arabia and 28 kilometers (17 mi) from Qatar. The total area of the country is about 780 square kilometers (301 sq mi), about 3.5 times the size of the District of Columbia.

A typically used by Earth scientists, a sabkha is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sahbkas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal plains just above normal high-tide level. Within a sabkha, evaporite-saline minerals sediments typically accumulate below the surface of mudflats or sandflats. Evaporite-saline minerals, tidal-flood, and eolian deposits characterize many sabkhas found along modern coastlines. The accepted type locality for a sabkha is at the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, in the United Arab Emirates. Sabkha is a phonetic translation of the Arabic word used to describe any form of salt flat. Sabkha is also known as either sabkhah or sebkha, and coastal sabkha.

The wildlife of Iraq includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Iraq has multiple biomes which include the mountainous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq to the wet marshlands along the Euphrates river. The western part of the country comprises desert and some semi-arid regions. As of 2001, seven of Iraq's mammal species and 12 of its bird species are endangered. The endangered species include the northern bald ibis and Persian fallow deer. The Syrian wild ass is extinct, and the Saudi Arabian dorcas gazelle was declared extinct in 2008.

The sooty gull is a species of gull in the family Laridae, also known as the Aden gull or Hemprich's gull. It is found in Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Mozambique, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As is the case with many gulls, it has traditionally been placed in the genus Larus. The sooty gull is named in honour of the German naturalist Wilhelm Hemprich who died in 1825 while on a scientific expedition to Egypt and the Middle East with his friend Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg.

The white-cheeked tern is a species of tern in the family Laridae. It is found around the coasts on the Red Sea, around the Horn of Africa to Kenya, in the Persian Gulf and along the Iranian coast to Pakistan and western India.

Island View Beach is located on the Eastern Cordova shore of the Saanich Peninsula, near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Bahrain Island, also known as al-Awal Island and formerly as Bahrein, is the largest island within the archipelago of Bahrain, and forms the bulk of the country's land mass while hosting the majority of its population.

The Tanji Bird Reserve is a bird reserve in The Gambia. Established in 1993, it covers an area of 612 hectares. It is also known as Karinti, the Tanji River Reserve or the Tanji National Park.

Housing more than 200 resident and wintering bird species, Chennai has long been a haven for bird watchers. It is the one of the few urban areas in India with diverse range of birds including greater flamingo, black baza, osprey, Eurasian eagle-owl, malabar barbet, Spot billed pelican and pied avocet can be seen. The following are some known birding hotspots in and around Chennai.

The Sandy Island and Low Rock Important Bird Area comprises two small islands with a collective area of 9 ha lying at the western end of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory of Australia. They lie south-west of Groote Eylandt off the coast of Arnhem Land, with the nearest settlement there the Numbulwar community. They are important as breeding sites for terns.

The Swan Bay and Port Phillip Bay Islands Important Bird Area comprises a cluster of disparate sites centred at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula, and the southern end of Port Phillip, in Victoria, south-eastern Australia. As well as providing core wintering habitat for orange-bellied parrots, it is important for waders, or shorebirds, and seabirds.

The wildlife of Bahrain is the flora and fauna of the archipelago of Bahrain, and is more varied than might be expected of this small group of islands in the Persian Gulf. Apart from a strip of the north and west of the main island, where crops such as potatoes are grown with irrigation, the land is arid. With a very hot dry summer, a mild winter, and brackish groundwater, the plants need adaptations in order to survive. Nevertheless, 196 species of higher plant have been recorded here, as well as about seventeen species of terrestrial mammals, many birds and reptiles, and a large number of migratory birds visit the islands in autumn and spring.

The wildlife of the United Arab Emirates is the flora and fauna of this country on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula and the southern end of the Persian Gulf. The country offers a variety of habitats for wildlife including the coast, offshore islands, mangrove areas, mudflats, salt pans, sand and gravel plains, sand dunes, mountain slopes, wadis and rocky summits. Because the terrain is so varied, it supports a greater number of species of plants and animals than might have been expected in this relatively small country.

Dagestan Nature Reserve is a Russian 'zapovednik' protects an area of sand dunes and ridges on the northwest coast of the Caspian Sea in the southeast of European Russia. The reserve, a wintering place for migratory birds, is the richest nature reserve in Russia in terms of the number of species - over 300 species have been recorded in the reserve, its buffer zones and subordinate reserves. The reserve is part of several "Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas" (IBAs). The Sarykum sand dune is the highest sand dune in Europe, at 262 m (860 ft). The reserve is situated in the Tarumovsky District of Dagestan.

References

↑ Philip's (1994). Atlas of the World. Reed International. pp. 86–87. ISBN 0-540-05831-9.
↑ Nyrop, Richard F. (2008). Area Handbook for the Persian Gulf States. Wildside Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-4344-6210-7.
1 2 "Gulf of Salwah". BirdLife International. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
1 2 Riegl, Bernhard; Purkis, Sam J. (2012). Coral Reefs of the Gulf: Adaptation to Climatic Extremes. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 9–15. ISBN 978-94-007-3008-3.

Gulf of Salwah

Contents

Geography

Fauna

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References

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