Unveiling coastal ecosystem dependencies: multifactorial analysis of climate change influencing mangrove system in the United Arab Emirates over the period 1990–2020

Mangroves are an integral part of the coastal ecosystems, demonstrating resiliency against adverse anthropogenic and environmental effects. They provide blue carbon stock and security against coastal erosion and act as a nutrient source for many aquatic inhabitants along with providing raw materials for human consumption. However, mangroves continue to perish due to several climate factors. Past research has indicated some environmental factors influencing the growth and sustenance of mangrove forests. This paper aims to study the impact of the climate changes on the UAE mangrove forests during the period 1990–2020. The climate change related factors studied include surface temperature, sea-level rise, salinity, and coastal inundation. Here, remote sensing techniques and supervised machine learning methods were utilized to derive the climatic factors. The correlations between mangrove and these factors were investigated as well. It was revealed that Land Surface Temperature is closely related to mangrove and that mangrove biomass was highest in the land surface temperature range 30–35 °C. Results have not shown a clear correlation between tidal inundation and mangroves. Furthermore, outputs also showed that mangrove biomass was negatively affected by sea-level rise. The analysis showed a general positive relationship between mangrove and salinity corresponding to an increase in mangrove biomass which was only found when conducting spatial analysis, however site-specific analysis (i.e., temporal) showed an increase in mangrove density with decrease in salinity. These findings could potentially aid in facilitating the identification of suitable new sites for plantation or existing sites for rehabilitation of mangroves in UAE in addition to formulating policies at the highest level for mangrove conservation.