Plans have been unveiled for the creation of what is being billed as the world’s largest underwater theme park in Dubai, with the attraction giving divers and snorkelers the chance to explore a lost underwater city.

Los Angeles-based underwater tourism design company Reef Worlds has produced plans for the Pearl of Dubai project in the Middle East, with a proposed location in Dubai’s The World Islands peninsula.

Designed by the same team who created the art for cinematic features Avatar and Pirates of the Caribbean, the attraction will seek to create a major tourism destination under the sea.

Hosted in shallow waters, the five-acre theme park will be created to look like the fabled lost city of Atlantis, giving divers and surface-level snorkellers the chance to explore the area's marine environment.

Dubai aims to grasp hold of the burgeoning $3bn (€2.1bn, £1.7bn) scuba diving and snorkelling market, while also seeking to develop conservational efforts in the area, with the Reef Worlds team working in accordance with sustainable marine goals.

"The UAE has a unique tourism problem that we address. When one considers Dubai and the region, scuba diving and underwater exploration is not on the Top Ten list, and yet it is almost everywhere else in the world," said Dave Taylor, director of development for Reef Worlds.

"The Reef Worlds brand is all about sustainability and the creation of new habitat while at the same time adding instant tourism revenue and excitement to waterfront resorts.

“We will work with carefully selected resort partners on unique underwater habitat projects that directly support our clients' sustainability and revenue goals."

To tackle the issues of damaged and declining reef habitats, Reef Worlds plans to use artificial reefs to help restore degraded or under performing environments located in resort locations.

“Everyone knows that artificial reefs work, but they are not attractive to resort guests. What we have created is the synthesis of both worlds, a way of re-imagining the artificial reef while providing our resort partners with new revenue, media, and guest excitement,” added Taylor.

“Every waterfront resort on the planet has a minimum of two to 10 acres of usable space that sits - languishing. Globally it's about 500,000 square miles of wasted space. Imagine if just 10 per cent of those spaces were Reef Worlds sites, what would regional habitats look like?

“Like land-based gardens, your underwater spaces need to be tended to. For the past 40 years resorts have forgotten about these spaces – we're bringing that attention back in a sustainable way.”