Middle Eastern Mangroves at the Arid Limit (Red Sea and Arabian/Persian Gulf): Eco-Biophysical Dynamics, Blue-Carbon MRV, Climate-Risk Pathways, and Governance for Resilient Restoration - A Comprehensive Review

Gowhar Meraj^1*Mohamed Yehia Abouleish^1*Prof. Dr. Tarig A. Ali¹Shizuka Hashimoto²Asif Marazi³Rabin Chakrabortty¹Suraj Kumar Singh⁴Shruti Kanga⁵Mansour Almazroui⁶Md. Simul Bhuyan⁷

• ¹American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
• ²Tokyo Daigaku, Bunkyo, Japan
• ³Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar, India
• ⁴Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur, India
• ⁵Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India
• ⁶King Abdulaziz University Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
• ⁷Bangladesh Oceanographic Research Institute, Chattogram, Bangladesh

Middle Eastern (ME) mangroves, small and scattered at the arid limit of the biome, underpin shoreline protection, fisheries, and blue-carbon agendas along rapidly urbanizing coasts. However, global paradigms overstate performance, risking misplaced restoration and unrealistic offsets. We conducted a comprehensive multi-method review across the Red Sea, Arabian/Persian Gulf, and adjoining shores. From peer-reviewed and agency sources, the literature was synthesized across four domains: eco-biophysical dynamics, socio-economics, climate-risk pathways, and governance. The review demonstrated that four controls govern distribution and function: freshwater inputs, hypersalinity, heat, and sheltering geomorphology. Avicennia marina dominates as dwarf, slow-growing stands of ~2–4 m, allocating resources below ground on carbonate and nutrient-poor substrates. Vertical accretion is modest ~1–3 mm yr⁻¹, organic carbon burial is low ~10–15 g C m⁻² yr⁻¹, and soil stocks are small ~43 ± 5 Mg C ha⁻¹ relative to the humid tropics. A wave-energy threshold and micro- to mesotidal ranges constrain the flushing. Sea-level rise (SLR) of 2.92 mm yr⁻¹, with a projected increase of 39.1 cm by 2100, combined with thermal and salinity extremes, dust burial, and oiling, raises the risk. However, undisturbed soils confer high carbon permanence. Socio-economic benefits, such as nursery support, shoreline defence, and cultural amenities, are large, but enforcement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV), and co-management remain uneven. A region-specific framework is most essential. Priorities are to safeguard groundwater-fed refugia, secure retreat corridors, reduce local stressors, and deploy stress-matched restoration that replicates resilient features, such as space, sediment, seepage, and shelter, while anchoring mitigation in arid-zone MRV and avoided-loss accounting. This study provides a resilience–threat typology and governance braid linking legal protection, climate-linked restoration, regional coordination, and inclusive co-management.