The future development of agriculture must take into account groundwater scarcity, costs of desalinated water, and soil salination problems. Similarly, grazing may pose health threats to the animals in addition to slowing the recovery of desert vegetation. Contaminated soil must be cleaned. Huge amounts of oiled sand is a burden for the environment. Time is also working against Kuwait.
Oil continues to go deeper and deeper, making the problem more and more difficult to solve.
As the soil erodes, the particles become airborne and could create health problems and a large scale chronic pollution problem. These soils will also continue to pose threats to groundwater sources located nearby. Remediation must be dramatically accelerated. Even though experimental studies and cost effective assessments are not fully completed, knowledge seems sufficient to start remediation on a larger scale. Whatever it costs now, it will cost far more later.