Shifting environmental baselines in the Red Sea

Price, Andrew; Ghazi, Sameer; Tkaczynski, P.J.; Venkatachalam, A. J.; Santillan, August S.; Pancho, T.; Metcalfe, Robert; Saunders, Justine

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.10.055

Cited by 20 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Across the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters, marine habitats have experienced high levels of disturbance and are quickly deteriorating in quality due to major impacts from anthropogenic activities. Red Sea coral cover has markedly declined in the last 30 years, mirroring increased coastal construction (Price et al., ). In the “Gulf,” major impacts on marine habitats have been documented with the removal of shallow productive areas due to rapid large‐scale residential and commercial coastal development, desalination plants, chronic and acute releases of oil (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Troubled waters: Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters

et al. 2018

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The extinction risk of sharks, rays and chimaeras is higher than that for most other vertebrates due to low intrinsic population growth rates of many species and the fishing intensity they face. The Arabian Sea and adjacent waters border some of the most important chondrichthyan fishing and trading nations globally, yet there has been no previous attempt to assess the conservation status of species occurring here. Using IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Categories and Criteria and their guidelines for application at the regional level, we present the first assessment of extinction risk for 153 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras. Results indicate that this region, home to 15% of described chondrichthyans including 30 endemic species, has some of the most threatened chondrichthyan populations in the world. Seventy‐eight species (50.9%) were assessed as threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable), and 27 species (17.6%) as Near Threatened. Twenty‐nine species (19%) were Data Deficient with insufficient information to assess their status. Chondrichthyan populations have significantly declined due to largely uncontrolled and unregulated fisheries combined with habitat degradation. Further, there is limited political will and national and regional capacities to assess, manage, conserve or rebuild stocks. Outside the few deepsea locations that are lightly exploited, the prognosis for the recovery of most species is poor in the near‐absence of management. Concerted national and regional management measures are urgently needed to ensure extinctions are avoided, the sustainability of more productive species is secured, and to avoid the continued thinning of the regional food security portfolio.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Troubled waters: Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters

et al. 2018

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“…Seagrass are present all along the Arabian coastline, with 12 species recorded in the Red Sea and 3 species in the Arabian Gulf (Green & Short, 2003). In contrast with global trends (Duarte et al, 2008), the areal coverage of mangroves and seagrass beds appears to be stable or even modestly expanding in the Red Sea (Almahasheer, Aljowair, et al, 2016;Price et al, 2014). Conversely, wetlands on the Saudi coast of the Arabian Gulf have been severely impacted (Almahasheer et al, 2013), with widespread losses due to land reclamation for residential, recreational, and industrial use (Sheppard et al, 2010).…”

Section: Ecosystem Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accumulation of Carbonates Contributes to Coastal Vegetated Ecosystems Keeping Pace With Sea Level Rise in an Arid Region (Arabian Peninsula)

et al. 2018

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Anthropogenic sea level rise (SLR) presents one of the greatest risks to human lives and infrastructures. Coastal vegetated ecosystems, that is, tidal marshes, seagrass meadows, and mangrove forests, elevate the seabed through soil accretion, providing a natural coastline protection against SLR. The soil accretion of these ecosystems has never been assessed in hot desert climate regions, where water runoff is negligible. However, tropical marine ecosystems are areas of intense calcification that may constitute an important source of sediment supporting seabed elevation, compensating for the lack of terrestrial inputs. We estimated the long‐term (14C‐centennial) and short‐term (210Pb‐20th century) soil accretion rates (SARs) and inorganic carbon (Cinorg) burial in coastal vegetated ecosystems of the Saudi coasts of the central Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf. Short‐term SARs (±SE) in mangroves of the Red Sea (0.27 ± 0.22 cm/year) were twofold the SLR for that region since 1925 (0.13 cm/year). In the Arabian Gulf, only mangrove forest SAR is equivalent to local SLR estimates for the period 1979–2007 (0.21 ± 0.09 compared to 0.22 ± 0.05 cm/year, respectively). Long‐term SARs are comparable or higher than the global estimates of SLR for the late Holocene (0.01 cm/year). In all habitats of the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, SARs are supported by high carbonate accretion rates, comprising 40% to 60% of the soil volume. Further studies on the role of carbonates in coastal vegetated ecosystems are required to understand their role in adaptation to SLR.

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“…The Red Sea has extremely high biodiversity, with more than 1400 species of fish and over 300 species of coral, many of them unique to the region [11,12]. The area is economically important, with over 100,000 tons of fish reportedly caught each year, representing an annual value of over $200 million (US) [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergistic Use of Remote Sensing and Modeling to Assess an Anomalously High Chlorophyll-a Event during Summer 2015 in the South Central Red Sea

El-Askary

Manikandan

et al. 2017

Remote Sensing

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An anomalously high chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) event (>2 mg/m 3 ) during June 2015 in the South Central Red Sea (17.5 • to 22 • N, 37 • to 42 • E) was observed using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from the Terra and Aqua satellite platforms. This differs from the low Chl-a values (<0.5 mg/m 3 ) usually encountered over the same region during summertime. To assess this anomaly and possible causes, we used a wide range of oceanographical and meteorological datasets, including Chl-a concentrations, sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface height (SSH), mixed layer depth (MLD), ocean current velocity and aerosol optical depth (AOD) obtained from different sensors and models. Findings confirmed this anomalous behavior in the spatial domain using Hovmöller data analysis techniques, while a time series analysis addressed monthly and daily variability. Our analysis suggests that a combination of factors controlling nutrient supply contributed to the anomalous phytoplankton growth. These factors include horizontal transfer of upwelling water through eddy circulation and possible mineral fertilization from atmospheric dust deposition. Coral reefs might have provided extra nutrient supply, yet this is out of the scope of our analysis. We thought that dust deposition from a coastal dust jet event in late June, coinciding with the phytoplankton blooms in the area under investigation, might have also contributed as shown by our AOD findings. However, a lag cross correlation showed a two-month lag between strong dust outbreak and the high Chl-a anomaly. The high Chl-a concentration at the edge of the eddy emphasizes the importance of horizontal advection in fertilizing oligotrophic (nutrient poor) Red Sea waters.

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Shifting environmental baselines in the Red Sea

Cited by 20 publications

References 19 publications

Troubled waters: Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters

Troubled waters: Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters

Accumulation of Carbonates Contributes to Coastal Vegetated Ecosystems Keeping Pace With Sea Level Rise in an Arid Region (Arabian Peninsula)

Synergistic Use of Remote Sensing and Modeling to Assess an Anomalously High Chlorophyll-a Event during Summer 2015 in the South Central Red Sea

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