| Abstrakt: |
The Iran–Iraq war, followed by the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, and the unverified use of certain chemical warfare agents (CWAs) in the Arabian Gulf region, triggered the interest of environmental scientists in the probable fate of these chemical agents within the unique arid environment of the Arabian Gulf region. These efforts were hampered by the scarcity of information and the lack of published data. The first objective of the present study is to project the effect of local environmental conditions and soil characteristics on the fate processes of blistering CWAs if deposited on Kuwaiti arid soil. The second objective is to define the areas of research needed to understand the natural degradation and detoxification processes likely to take place in such a unique environment.It was nearly impossible quantitatively to estimate the fate of the agents of concern on the arid soil of Kuwait. However, descriptive projections were found to be very helpful in illustrating the possible fate of these agents. In general, the only two mechanisms found capable of affecting the fate of mustard CWAs on Kuwait arid soil were evaporation and hydrolysis. Day-time photodegradation and biodegradation were found to be of very limited impact. Additional research is needed to study the natural processes controlling the fate of CWAs to determine accurately the rate of detoxification under Kuwait's environmental conditions and to confirm the aforementioned speculations. |
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