RIYADH: The Red Sea may not have dead zones, but its fragile ecosystem is vulnerable to oxygen depletion — a quiet decline that can undermine coral health and disrupt marine life.
Sea dead zones are hypoxic or low-oxygen pockets that form most often when nutrient pollution — especially nitrogen and phosphorus from farm runoff and wastewater — fuels blooms that ultimately strip oxygen from the water.
Experts say the risk is not inevitable, but it depends on earlier detection and tighter control of the conditions that drain oxygen from coastal waters.
A sea that relies on its own “breathing” is also a sea shaped by geography.
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