Within the UAE, the main threats to the species are likely to be due to coastal land use changes and potentially from oil spills, but the severity of these threats on the species there are uncertain.Individuals that visit the UAE are also impacted upon by a range of threats outside of the country. Threats on the breeding grounds include oil and gas exploration and associated infrastructure development, legal subsistence harvesting and illegal hunting, and increases in predator numbers (Brown et al. 2014). Climate change has the potential to affect vegetation and the extent of suitable breeding habitat (P. Battley in litt. 2016). The species is also threatened by the degradation of stopover and non-breeding sites due to land reclamation, shellfisheries, pollution, human disturbance, reduced river flows,;and in some areas the invasion of mudflats and coastal saltmarshes by mangroves (owing to sea-level rise and increased sedimentation and nutrient loads at the coast from uncontrolled development and soil erosion in upstream catchment areas) (del Hoyo;et al.;1996, Kelin and Qiang 2006, Straw and Saintilan 2006, Melville;et al.;2016).;Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment of wetland areas at non-breeding sites can also cause cyanobacterium blooms that may impact this species's prey species (Estrella;et al.;2011).;The species has also been susceptible to avian influenza in the past so may be threatened by future outbreaks of the virus (Melville and Shortridge 2006).