Options for maintaining fishery production in the United Arab Emirates due to climate change adaptation strategies

Abstract

Fisheries around the world continue to face high demand for more fish to catch in order to offer a healthier alternative source of protein. This is mostly due to the declining global wild fish stock. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), similar to many other countries, has witnessed declining per capita fish availability in the last three decades due to such decreasing fish catch. The goal of this research is to study the benefits and socio-economic implication of adopting sustainable practices in face of climatic uncertainty in the UAE. More specifically, the study undertakes impact analyses of efforts made to sustain such valuable natural resource endowment, i.e., the fish stock. The sustainable practices of the fisheries sector include both hard and soft measures. Hard measures include construction of artificial fish habitats in the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Meanwhile, soft measures include enforcement of regulations that protect and conserve the fisheries’ stocks.  The economic impacts of these practices are evaluated assuming targeted shiftsbased on assumned scenarios of adaptations measures. To achieve the research objective empirical UAE economic data and  Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model used to perform the analysis. Results show that prices of fishery products and of other related commodities will decline which will benefit the consumers the most. Producers in all relevant directly and indirectly related economic sectors gain due to more sales, which offsets economic losses caused by the lower fish prices. Returns to factors of production, such capital, and labor, also change from sustainable practices. To measure these impacts this study measures the changes in consumer and producer welfare in the UAE due to the simulated targeted interventions. The limitation of such proposed climate change adaptation impact is that fishermen are profit maximizers and so they may underinvest in sustainable adaptations to climate change which implies that public sector (e.g. government) should play a positive role to sustain fisheries sectors practices in the long-term.