The Eastern Mediterranean is unusually blue. This is because it is  as much a desert as the Sahara desert to the south and for similar reasons. The water circulation, caused by the hot dry climate, results in the dissolved nutrients which are supplied to the surface waters both naturally and anthropogenically being washed out of the basin at the Straits of Sicily. The aim of our team in Sdot Yam is to make measurements of the ultra-low levels of dissolved nutrients (nitrate, phosphate, ammonia and silicate) found in the waters off the Israeli coast.  We study nutrient cycling in both shallow and deeper waters. Our aim is to understand the nature of the natural system and the effects of environmental and climate change. We have a special interest in studying how the turnoff of the river Nile flood in 1965 affected important biogeochemical processes on the Israeli shelf.  

• Open water- shelf nutrient dynamics throughout time. For this instance we have been sampling:

– Bimonthly nutrient transect at Sdot Yam: 10 to 100 m depth profiles 

– Seasonal nutrient enrichment essays assessing the Alexander estuary denitrification rates