Saudi Arabia

"We are thrilled to bring the Red Sea into the international monitoring efforts for MarineGEO. The Red Sea provides a unique, naturally extreme environment with endemic communities we can use to explore how coastal habitats are changing globally." - Maggie Johnson, Co-PI of the MarineGEO Red Sea Observatory

The MarineGEO Red Sea Observatory is a newly founded location in collaboration with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Our research sites are located in the central Red Sea on the Saudi Coast. We are home to ecologically fascinating coral reefs, mangrove and seagrass environments, which, because of the naturally high temperatures of the region have often been described as ‘natural laboratories’ for studying future conditions as tropical coastal systems worldwide face the consequences of human impacts.

Our program is building on the current coastal habitat monitoring program led by Professor Susana Carvalho since 2013. We are excited to join this network of tropical coastal ecosystems with our very unique location, and are particularly keen to contribute to cross-network experiments and sampling efforts. We look forward to working with network partners who are interested in leveraging the unique biota and environmental conditions of the Red Sea to ask questions about change in coastal habitats and resilience to future ocean change.

MarineGEO Team

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