Sea sonal vari a tions, en vi ron men tal pa ram e ters and stand ing crop as sess ment of ben thic foraminifera in east ern Bah rain, Ara bian Gulf Liv ing ben thic foraminifera in a rel a tively un pol luted site off shore Bah rain in the Ara bian Gulf, were stud ied to de ter mine the sea sonal vari abil ity of their pop u la tions, as well as en vi ron men tal pa ram e ters that may af fect their dis tri bu tion. The max i mum foraminiferal den sity was ob served dur ing win ter with the as sem blages pri mar ily dom i nated by rotaliids and sec ond arily by miliolids. The high pop u la tion is at trib uted to an in creased num ber of ju ve niles. A re la tion ship be tween sed i ment grain-size and the foraminiferal den sity re veals that ju ve niles were most abun dant on coarse-grained sandy sub strate and less abundant on fine-grained sub strates. In spring, the foraminiferal den sity de creased, and the low est val ues were ob served dur ing sum mer. The pop u la tion in creased again in au tumn with high est ju ve nile/adult ra tios. More over, re sults of rel a tive abundance and spe cies con sis tency show that Am mo nia and Glabratellina are con sis tent from the shal low est to the deep est station, whereas miliolids oc curred only at deeper sta tions. The num bers of Peneroplidae and Elphidium also in creased along the depth transect. En vi ron men tal char ac ter iza tion re veals that al though the site is sub ject to eutrophication caused by nitrates and sul fates, pol lu tion caused by hy dro car bons and heavy met als is not sig nif i cant. The as sess ment of 63 heavy metals showed that none of the met als had con cen tra tions that ex ceed in ter na tion ally ac cepted norms (the de vised level of Ef fect Range -Low), but with high con cen tra tion of stron tium. The lack of a sig nif i cant en vi ron men tal ef fect of heavy met als is con firmed by the Foraminiferal Ab nor mal ity In dex of <2%. Like wise, no hy dro car bon con tam i na tion was de tected in the wa ter or sed i ment sam ples. We con clude that the site in Bah rain is not yet ad versely af fected by hu man de vel op ment, and there fore can pro vide base line in for ma tion for fu ture com par i son and as sess ment of foraminiferal as sem blages in con tam inated zones of the Ara bian Gulf.