Fujairah

This study documents the effects of two consecutive disturbances on coral community structures in the Gulf of Oman (United Arab Emirates); Cyclone Gonu in June 2007 and the Cochlodinium polykrikoides harmful algal bloom (HAB) that persisted from August 2008 until May 2009. Coral cover, colony densities, size class frequency distributions, and geometric growth rates derived from size class transition probability matrices were used to assess the post-Gonu and post-HAB recovery trajectories at four sites. The net effects of these disturbances were fourfold: (i) storm damage caused >50% losses of live branching and tabular coral cover by fragmentation and dislodgment of pocilloporid and acroporid colonies; (ii) Pocillopora damicornis colonies that survived the cyclone experienced mass mortality during the first 3 months of the HAB, resulting in localized extirpation of this species; (iii) variable Acropora mortality during the HAB indicated individual colony, rather than taxa-wide, susceptibility; and (iv) massive colony coral taxa were resistant to both disturbances.

"The paper proposal is to present a photographic research carried out of the oldest recorded functional mosque in the UAE, located in the Al-Fujairah Emirate.
The challenge was to find an artistically suitable approach to the recording of the building. The study captures the phenomenology of the place. The use of black and white photography allowed me to embody the sensation of how does it feel like to inhabit such a poetic space. The images allow glimpses of occupation and use. The project was approached as an art piece, specially as the photographs themselves are an ‘art statement’. The Building is a functional place of worship and not an object. The aim was to emphasize a system that expresses the building’s artistic beauty, the material presence and at the same time demonstrates human occupation"