THE IMPACT OF THE POLLUTION OF THE AQUATIC ENVIRONMENT OF MARINE FISHERIES ON THE FISH PRODUCTION OF SAUDI ARABIA

The research aimed to measure the impact of pollution of the aquatic environment of marine fisheries on fish production in Saudi Arabia. This study achieves its objectives based on published secondary data and the estimation of the recursive model by ordinary least squares (OLS) method during the 1995-2017 period. The results of the study show the decline of the productivity of fishing vessels due to overfishing and failure to keep pace with the biological growth rate. The proportion of fish stocks within a biologically sustainable level declined from 87% in 2013 to 54% in 2017. The major factor of the decline of fish stocks and the productivity of fishing vessels is the environmental pollution of marine fisheries such as untreated sewage. The 10% increase of untreated sewage leads to a decrease in marine fish production by 20.9%.