Tamar Zandberg, Minister of Environmental Protection: “The monitoring findings are alarming. They point to the continued deterioration of the sensitive ecosystem of the Gulf of Eilat. The reef in Eilat is not only the main attraction of the city of Eilat, but also a natural treasure of global importance, and it is the responsibility of all parties to preserve it. It is impossible to leave such a rare and fragile asset in local management only. There should be greater involvement of the government ministries in protecting the bay in the face of threats, many of which originate locally. These findings reinforce the need to continue adopting the ‘zero risk addition to the Bay of Eilat’ policy outlined by the Ministry of Environmental Protection as well as reducing human pressure at the local level – something that will help to significantly improve the maritime system so that it will also succeed in the challenges of the climate crisis. The development in Eilat that is being carried out these days, and especially along its shores, should be done in a more sensitive manner than is currently done. The development works currently taking place on the shores of Eilat ignore environmental considerations in a way that cannot be considered reasonable in the current situation of the deterioration of the ecosystem”.
The monitoring findings
The findings of the national monitoring for 2021 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection through the Inter-University Institute of Marine Sciences in Eilat present a worrying picture indicating the deterioration of the sensitive ecosystem of the Gulf of Eilat. The report was submitted to the executive committee of the monitoring program financed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection – Dr. Yonatan Shaked and Prof. Emzia Ganin.
One of the recommendations of the report is that in view of the global stressors that are expected to increase due to climate change, the accumulation of local stressors must be prevented, because a weakened system will have difficulty dealing with a variety of stressors acting on it at the same time.
In March 2020, the city of Eilat faced an unusually strong storm that led to the breaking of some of the corals and sand covers, as well as the drifting of beach debris and parts of infrastructure. The storm caused a loss of between 6% and 22% of the coral cover on the reef. The summary of the year after the storm (2021) shows that not only did the reef not recover, but a further 5% decrease in coral cover was found. The monitoring findings indicate that the destructive results of the storm are still visible in the Gulf to this day – in the background there is a fear of further damage to the natural values as a result of the construction activities on the beaches, works that make it even more difficult to restore the coral reef.
Another worrisome trend observed in the report is the continued increase in the deep water temperature recorded in the previous surveys. At the same time, the sea surface temperature has also been increasing since 1988, at an average rate of about 0.045 degrees Celsius per year. This rate is 2.5 times higher than the global average calculated by the IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Deep mixing in the gulf
The year 2021 is the ninth year without deep mixing in the Gulf. Dr. Dror Tsurela scientific center for monitoring and research at sea in the national unit for the protection of the marine environment in the Ministry of Environmental Protection and a member of the executive committee of the monitoring program, explains the importance of deep mixing:
Deep mixing is a process that happens every few years, in which the upper water cools in the winter and sinks down, and the deep water in which nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) have accumulated rises to the surface. Some of the nutrients are consumed by algae in the spring, which increases the turbidity of the sea water and makes it difficult for the corals to carry out photosynthesis. The rest of the nutrients continue with the currents out of the bay, thus cleaning the bay of excess nutrients.
In the past, deep mixing occurred every three to four years. The more time passes without deep mixing, the more nutrients accumulate in the deep water – which causes higher turbidity and a longer duration.
In the winter of 2022, a deep mixing took place which manifested itself in algae blooms, high turbidity and sticky foam on the surface of the water in the months of May-July. The rise of nutrients accumulated over a decade to the surface also makes it difficult for the reef to recover from the damage of the 2020 storm.
Sea urchins, sea urchins and sea grass
Another serious damage was also found in the biological diversity in the Gulf of Eilat. Thus, a decrease of approximately 50% was observed in the number of sea urchins in relation to 2019 and in an order of magnitude relative to their number in 2004 when the monitoring began. The sea urchins play an important role in cleaning the reef from algae that compete with the corals for settlement sites on the reef. In addition, about 1% of the burrowing population in the area of the mouth of the Kinet Canal was observed with a deformation of the calcareous skeleton that did not occur before. Another finding raised by the report is that it is no longer possible to observe seaweed at a depth of about 10 meters. The disappearance of the sea grass at this depth is a fatal injury to the habitat for young fish and invertebrates.
Prof. Nega Kronfeld Shore, the chief scientist of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the chairperson of the executive committee of the monitoring program, states that “the monitoring findings show that although the Red Sea is a large body of water shared by a large number of countries, the main impact on the system in Israel’s maritime territory stems from activity that originates in Israel, and in addition The changes that the maritime system is going through due to the climate crisis are also evident in the report. This is a sensitive and important system, and we must do as much as we can to prevent further damage to it.”