A multi-dimensional vulnerability assessment of Pingtan Island (China) and Nile Delta (Egypt) using ecological Sensitivity-Resilience-Pressure (SRP) model

Despite the recent progress on Ecological Vulnerability studies by developing index models, similar studies on the coastal areas are still rare. Pingtan’s main island of Fujian Province in China and the coastal area of Nile Delta in Egypt, have witnessed unprecedented development associated with fragile coastal areas. SRP model is a comprehensive model, utilized to evaluate the ecological vulnerability to provide a solid reference for the development of SRP model development. Research results indicated that the ecological vulnerability of the coastal areas of Nile Delta was slightly better than that of Pingtan’s main island in 2018, the former was almost at a micro level, while the latter was almost at a mild level (micro and mild vulnerable area accounted for 65.99%). Pingtan’s main island, showed a slight deterioration trend from west to east, and the characteristics of massive regional distribution, with a slight deterioration of the overall ecological environment of the planning area from 2013 to 2018. For the coastal area of Nile Delta, the ecological vulnerability was gradually increasing from the middle of the basin to the periphery, and the extremely vulnerable area was mainly distributed in the northern coastal area and the arid desert areas from 2018 to 2019. Moreover, according to the statistics results about the maximum weight of ecological pressure was 0.4989 on Pingtan’s main island and 0.4960 in the coastal area of Nile Delta, ecological sensitivity and pressure played a vital role in ecological vulnerability and spatial pattern of two study areas, which contain climate (mainly involving temperature, precipitation), vegetation, and human activities (mainly involving land-use, economy, and population). The current study not only confirmed the close relationship between ecological vulnerability, natural attributes, and human activities, also showed the strong applicability of SRP model in the coastal ecological fragile area.