Recruitment of marine biota onto hard and soft artificially created subtidal habitats in Sabah Al-Ahmad Sea City, Kuwait

Remediation of coastal habitats from impacts such as dredging and excavation in Gulf coastal waters is hampered by a lack of information on natural recolonisation rates and recruitment patterns of subtidal biota. For soft substrate habitats recovery information is only available for severely polluted sites where recovery takes many years (Jones et al., 2008).Construction of the Sabah Al-Ahmad Sea City provides a unique opportunity to follow benthic recruitment and community development on a range of artificially created benthic habitats over time. The three phases completed were each flooded by the sea separately and annual ecological surveys allow comparison of colonisation patterns and community development rates over time.Species diversity similar to that seen in comparable natural open sea habitats is reached within 2–5 years for mixed sand/rock biota, but longer (2–6 years) for sand biota. Biotic abundance exceeds open sea levels within 1–2 years due to settlement of opportunistic species. Coral recruitment occurred within 3 years. Present data provides a reference point for recovery rates into none polluted benthic habitats for the Gulf.

► Surveys of artificial soft benthos allows estimation of recruitment rates for benthos. ► Species richness equivalent to that in the open sea may be achieved in 4 years. ► Richness is further enhanced by provision of mixed habitat and local seed sources. ► Abundance of biota in soft benthos reaches levels seen in open sea within 1 year. ► Community structure takes 2–4 years to reach the structure seen in open sea benthos.