Description: The Barzan Gas Project is a critical program to deliver natural gas to Qatar’s future industries. This project was expected to cause impacts to shallow coral communities during pipeline construction. To partially meet the state’s environmental clearance for the project whilst supporting the state’s national vision, RasGas Company Limited developed a project-specific Coral Management, Relocation, and Monitoring Plan that incorporated proven methodologies to relocate at-risk coral colonies to a suitable location. The coral relocation project includes: 1) an initial survey to assess coral colonies’ health and suitability for relocation; 2) the relocation of more than 1,600 corals from the pipeline corridor to a recipient site containing 550 limestone boulders and 3) a 5-year monitoring program to assess the health of the reattached coral colonies, colonization of the artificial habitat and document reef fish associated with the recipient site. Applications: 1) Oil and gas and large infrastructure project developers seeking to identify, mitigate and potentially compensate marine environmental impacts from construction activities 2) Government and private organizations involved in marine environmental protection and developing knowledge on coral communities in Qatar and the Middle East Results and Conclusions: 1) Results from the initial Baseline Environmental Survey (BES) completed in the pipeline corridor and at proposed coral transplantation sites 2) Results from the post-construction monitoring surveys competed at the transplantation sites with comparison to other coral relocation projects in the region and focus on monitoring techniques and survivorship rates. 3) Innovative technological approaches and knowledge-based compensation initiatives under development to supplement the coral relocation project in the area of coral, sea grass and fisheries habitat management. Technical Contributions: 1) Coral habitat management 2) Coral relocation techniques 3) Innovative monitoring tools for marine environmental protection.
