An integrated environmental assessment of the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The Red Sea is a large marine ecosystem in which biological research has been considerable but integrated environmental assessment insubstantial. Approximately 1400 coastal and offshore (i.e. island) sites in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea were examined and an analysis of ordinal data on the abundance of ecosystems and magnitude of human uses/environmental impacts was conducted. Mangroves, seagrasses, other floral groups and terrestrial mammals were significantly more abundant at the coastal sites than offshore. The coastal sites were also impacted most heavily, while reefs, birds, turtles and marine mammals were significantly more abundant in offshore areas. Latitudinal trends include significantly increased abundance of mangroves and seagrasses (and other flora) towards the southern Red Sea, and a decrease in abundance of reefs. Significantly higher levels of beach oil were encountered towards the northern Red Sea, probably reflecting its greater proximity to the Gulf of Suez. Cluster analysis using all biological data revealed distinctive groupings which separated according to latitude. The biogeographic patterns are comparable to those observed in previous studies for seagrasses and other communities.Using a relational database, applications of the findings to coastal management include creation of environmental profiles for particular sites or sectors, identification of resource-use conflict areas, and selection of representative sites for protected areas. Comparison with data from a complementary investigation in the Arabian Gulf indicates that the Red Sea is less perturbed by human activities than the Arabian Gulf. However, it is also evident that the Red Sea is no longer a pristine environment.

Decadal changes (1996–2006) in coastal ecosystems of the Chagos archipelago determined from rapid assessment

“…The methodology, which involves collection and analysis of ordinal (ranked) environmental data, follows that developed for the Red Sea and also used in several other regions, including Chagos (Dawson Shepherd and Ormond, 1987;Price, 1990Price, , 2004Price et al, 1988Price et al, , 1998Price et al, , 2000Wilson et al, 2003).…”

“…plastic bottles or cans, in the case of solid waste). Estimating fishing/collecting pressure by rapid assessment is not straightforward (Price et al, 1998). In the absence of direct evidence of boats or fishers, partly because coastal fishing is illegal, marine harvesting was determined indirectly from various indicators, including: nets and equipment, seemingly in recent or current use; discarded Tridacna shells; hessian sacks (for catch and/or provisions); freshwater wells; fire areas; fishing camps; and cleared vegetation.…”

“…Besides this and the earlier study in Chagos (Price, 1999), the present rapid assessment method has been used for evaluating coastal health, identifying resource-use conflicts, characterizing (seagrass) assemblage composition, biogeographic patterns and associations with environmental conditions, and as a conservation tool for identifying candidate sites for protected area systems. Published accounts are available for Cameroon (Price et al, 2000), the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia and (former) N. Yemen (Dawson Shepherd and Ormond, 1987;Price, 2004;Price et al, 1988Price et al, , 1998, the Gulf of Aden coast of Yemen (Wilson et al, 2003), the Persian/ Arabian Gulf (Price, 1990;Price et al, 1993) and Tunisia (Agriconsulting/Azimu/Shoreline, 2008a,b). The same rapid assessment methodology has also been used, but not published, in a Global Environment Facility project in Eritrea.…”

“…The present study has revealed several significant decadal changes to the coastal environment of Chagos. The utility of rapid assessment to identify resource-use conflicts has also been demonstrated for Chagos (Price, 1999) and other regions (Price, 1990(Price, , 2004Price et al, 1998). This provides site-specific information on where early management is called for.…”

The Benthic Megafaunal Assemblages of the CCZ (Eastern Pacific) and an Approach to their Management in the Face of Threatened Anthropogenic Impacts

“…In particular, the application of a strategic approach to marine spatial planning and of the concept of marine sanctuaries to the high seas was considered (Tilot, 2004;Ardron et al, 2008). The present study has taken this approach further to propose the application of multilayer Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) (Price et al, 1998;Price, 2004), of management indexes (Tilot et al, 2008a,b;Tilot, 2013Tilot, , 2016 and of ecohydrodynamics (Moreno Navas et al, 2014), to one or more of the UNESCO/IOC baseline sites.…”