Water & Wetlands · Greenly Feature
A boardwalk through a working ecosystem: how Jubail Island's mangroves hold the Abu Dhabi coastline together, store carbon, and shelter everything from flamingos to mudskippers.
Most of the UAE's coastline is engineered, concrete and stone holding back the Gulf. Jubail Island's is grown. Along its boardwalk, dense stands of mangroves do the same job a sea wall would, just slower, cheaper, and with a lot more living in it. Ashwaq Al Mansoori, Environment & Sustainability Officer at Jubail Mangrove Park, answered Greenly's questions on what that actually looks like on the ground.
Mangroves work as a natural barrier, and the mechanics are fairly simple once you see them. Their dense root systems stabilise the shoreline by holding sediment in place, while also absorbing wave energy before it reaches the coast, which limits erosion over time.
"This makes mangrove-covered areas more resilient to waves and changing coastal conditions compared with exposed shorelines without the same natural vegetation."
Ashwaq Al Mansoori, Jubail Mangrove Park
The protection isn't the whole story, though. The same root systems that anchor the shoreline also create habitat for marine life and birds, and the mangroves themselves store carbon, doing coastal defence, biodiversity support, and climate mitigation at once, from the same stretch of trees.
Jubail Mangrove Park's biodiversity spans mangrove, salt marsh, and surrounding marine habitats, and what a visitor sees along the boardwalk depends on season, tide, and how the wildlife is behaving that day. Flamingos, herons, and egrets are regulars overhead and along the water's edge; crabs, fish, and mudskippers work the mud below. Every one of these species is using the mangroves for something specific: feeding, shelter, or as a nursery for their young.
Letting people into a working ecosystem without wrecking it is its own design problem. The park's answer is to route people, not restrict them outright: the boardwalk gives visitors designated access through the mangroves close enough to experience the ecosystem without disturbing the sensitive areas around it, and kayaking follows the same logic, confined to designated routes managed specifically to minimise impact on the surrounding habitat.
According to Al Mansoori, it comes down to ongoing visitor management and environmental awareness rather than a one-time design fix, the goal being access to nature that doesn't come at the expense of the mangrove ecosystem itself.
The park's education and conservation work isn't aimed at one type of visitor. Schools, university students, researchers, corporate groups, families, and the wider community all get something different out of it, from guided experiences and environmental awareness activities to conservation-focused programmes built around learning directly from the mangrove environment rather than a classroom. The park also works with universities, researchers, and environmental organisations to support research and knowledge-sharing on mangroves and coastal ecosystems more broadly.
"Jubail Mangrove Park is much more than a visitor destination. It is a living and constantly changing ecosystem shaped by the tides."
Ashwaq Al Mansoori, Jubail Mangrove Park
The mangroves are doing three jobs at once, whether or not anyone's watching: protecting the coastline, storing carbon, and providing habitat for wildlife. The boardwalk is just the part built for people to notice.
About Jubail Mangrove Park
Jubail Mangrove Park is a mangrove, salt marsh, and marine boardwalk destination on Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi, part of the Abu Dhabi Mangrove Initiative. Learn more at jubailmangrovepark.ae.