RPI was part of a team of 4 companies tasked to develop a Coastal Resources Atlas and Environmental Vulnerability Index to support coastal management and planning in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, through the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD). The project objectives were to develop a product for use in coastal management and planning as well as oil spill response for the coastal and marine environments of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

RPI’s role included the design of a robust database to aggregate all the natural resources existing data describing Abu Dhabi’s coastal and marine habitats. We then classified the coastal habitats using object based image analysis of remotely sensed imagery compiled and integrated these data into a standard compatible with the hierarchical Coastal and Marine Ecosystem Classification System (CMECS). As part of this effort, RPI developed and implemented an advanced stressor-receptor based vulnerability index for coastal habitats in the Emirate.