The Barzan Gas Project is a critical program to deliver natural gas to Qatar’s future industries. The project was expected to affect shallow coral communities during pipeline construction from Qatar’s North field to onshore. To partially meet the state’s environmental clearance for the project while supporting the state’s national vision, RasGas developed a project-specific coral-management, -relocation, and -monitoring plan that incorporated proven methodologies to relocate at-risk coral colonies to a suitable location.
Introduction
In addition to natural-gas reserves, coral-reef communities are regarded as a significant and highly productive natural resource in Qatar, providing refuge and nursery areas for many commercially important fish and shellfish species during portions of their life cycle. Corals off the coast of Qatar grow in one of the more thermally stressed environments in the world.
