The Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) Sea Area (RSA) in the northern Indian Ocean, which comprises the Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the northern Arabian Sea, already experiences naturally extreme environmental conditions and incorporates one of the world’s warmest seas. There is growing evidence that climate change is already affecting the environmental conditions of the RSA, in areas including sea temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and sea level, which are set to continue changing over time. The cumulative impacts of these changes on coastal and marine ecosystems and dependent societies are less well documented, but are likely to be significant, especially in the context of other human stressors. This review represents the first regional synthesis of observed and predicted climate change impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems across the ROPME Sea Area and their implications for dependent societies. Climate-driven ecological changes include loss of coral reefs due to bleaching and the decline of fish populations, while socio-economic impacts include physical impacts from sea-level rise and cyclones, risk to commercial wild capture fisheries, disruption to desalination systems and loss of tourism. The compilation of this review is aimed to support the development of targeted adaptation actions and to direct future research within the RSA.

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Summary A total of 2,851 fishes belonging to 34 species and weighing 177.15 kg were caught between July 1983 and June 1984 near Kohr al‐Zubair in the northwestern Arabian Gulf, using four types of fixed gillnets with different mesh sizes. Four species (Thryssa hamiltoni, Liza macrolepis, T. mystax and Nematalosa nasus) formed 82.1% of all fish while 3 species (L. macrolepis, T. hamiltoni, Pomadasys argenteus) comprised 50.3 % of the total wet weight. The abundance of species was highest during autumn and spring, clearly reflecting the high values for the diverse indices during these periods and indicating the differing biological fish utilization of Kohr al‐Zubair. The high positive correlation of temperature to number of species played an important role in this abiotic factor of fish migration to and from Kohr al‐Zubair. Quantitative clustering of common fish species based on individual samples showed six distinctive groups. Group I included four resident species, while groups II‐VI comprised mainly seasonal species that entered the Kohr area during either warm or cold seasons.

The catch per unit effort (c.p.u.e.) estimated as kg/hr and the yield per recruitment (Y/R) often common by-catch fishes are used in the present paper to investigate the effects of shrimp trawlers on the fisheries status and its environment in the Northwest Arabian Gulf. Samples were collected on weekly basis through fishery-oceanography survey carried out by the Marine Science Centre at the University of Basrah during the period of 1995-1999, using two small shrimp trawlers. The catch per unit effort (c.p.u.e.) of total, commer cial fishes, shrimps, and other invertebrates catches showed a drastical drop year by year. The results of the relative yield per recruitment (Y'/R) of the ten investigated species, their optimum and current lengths at first capture (L e) and their lengths at first maturation (L m) indicate that the stock of these species suffered a problem of recruitment overfishing. A strategy of protection for Northwest Arabian Gulf fisheries involves implementing closed season, introducing an effort limitation policy should be designed.

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