Middle East setting enhanced environment standards in marine development

This article was originally published in October 2025 in MEP Middle East.

The Middle East’s continuing development boom has seen a host of new tourism attractions that aim to capitalise on the stunning coastlines. There is an opportunity and appetite to go beyond existing standards on environmental management as part of this process. RSK Middle East Associate Director Maria Faria shares how developers and contractors can apply lessons learned from other marine developments to those planned for the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea.

The Gulf states are increasingly looking to business opportunities within tourism, health and sports, arts and culture – as these endeavours are attractive to international financiers. Increasingly, these developments emphasise environmental and social value issues, but while big strides have been made, the rapid timelines for development can create unique challenges. Once key stakeholders have agreed to a design, significant changes are near-impossible. In order to take the next step in embedding environmental and social values in a development, due diligence on the social, environmental and technical feasibility must be carried out at an early stage.

In many cases across the Middle East, design decisions for major projects are made at the senior governmental level, with environmental and social impact assessments typically conducted in subsequent phases.

In our experience, developments in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf move at a very rapid pace. The early design stages often advance while the next phases of the design are refined. The pace of work is such that sometimes construction work is being completed in parallel with a team in the field assessing the environmental impacts. While this makes for shortened construction timeframes, it also limits what environmental and social impacts can be avoided or mitigated.

For example, a design may call for a jetty or pier. Environmental assessments might then find a high likelihood of this impacting nearby coral habitat. While mitigation methods can be applied, such as micro-siting the supports of the jetty or using floating or cantilevered segments for the design to minimise direct impact on the reef from construction activities, these solutions are often not ideal from an environmental point of view. The position of the jetty will always restrict the sunlight that reaches the reef, and the operation of boats in and out will have a continuous impact. It is likely that these mitigation measures will cause delays to the development from the redesign process, and the measures are likely to incur additional costs. In this example, the best solution would be to relocate the jetty to avoid impact on the reef altogether; however, as the rest of the development is under way, the design is already committed to, and relocation is no longer possible.

By contrast, bringing in environmental practitioners and consultants at the earliest possible point means that environmental mitigation measures can be built into the design before it is ever put forward for consideration.

For example, a resort may be planned with villas extending directly onto a sandy beach that is an important turtle nesting area. This is identified at the pre-design stage, and alterations to the design see the villas moved further back from the beach and connected with elevated walkways that allow the beach beneath to be used by nesting turtles.

This may seem a small change, but in a resort design it may also mean that recreation amenities or staff facilities must be relocated to accommodate the new villa location. Such changes are not likely to be possible if the design is already approved and the preliminary work started. There may be other structures that mean the villas cannot be moved back, or work that permanently alters the beach might have already begun.

Involving environmental consultants at the pre-design stage and sharing the environmental data they have for a project area along with the early design concepts enables consultants to evaluate environmental baseline gaps and key constraints, and identify the opportunities of multiple design ideas at a stage when the designs can be easily altered. In such a fast-paced construction environment, any improvements to the environmental and social impact of a design are to be welcomed before the design is committed to.

This also gives developers a better idea of which contractors would be best for the project from the environmental and social perspective, and enables contractors to ensure they have adequate resources and expertise and that the scope of work is exactly what they have quoted for.

In an ideal scenario, environmental practitioners would participate in the design workshops or even contribute to the design concepts at the earliest opportunity. In this way, not only gaps and constraints but also opportunities can be identified and acted upon. For example, many of the marine developments in the region are of significant size. Any marine protection plans or measures, such as reduced boat traffic or no-fishing zones, that are enacted as a result of the development would cover a huge area of coast or sea, creating what is essentially a new type of enhanced management area.

In the long term, it will be useful to develop certifications and rating systems for local contractors that work responsibly and in line with the desired environmental and social standards, as well as to expand regulatory frameworks to better reflect the challenges of construction and operations in marine ecosystems.

In the short term though, success will come from embedding the desired values from the outset of a project. If we can do this through a conscious and determined approach that proactively incorporates environmental opportunities and constraints into development ideas then marine developments in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf could set a new benchmark in responsible marine development within the next five years.

Maria Alejandra Faria is an environmental manager (marine specialist) and associate director for RSK Middle East. She has over 25 years’ experience working in the environmental consultancy sector, with a particular focus in the field of marine science and ecotourism. She has worked on many projects involving sustainable development and international cooperation and currently oversees the regional marine team and the GIS hub. She is also a Registered Professional Biologist, College of Applied Biologists, Canada.