Assessment of coastal ecosystems vulnerability to pollution: Algiers coast, Algeria
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessment of coastal ecosystems vulnerability to pollution: Algiers coast, Algeria Mohamed Adlane Silhadi 1
&
Wahid Refes 1 & Sakina Mazouzi 1
Received: 6 December 2019 / Accepted: 13 July 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Coastal areas are frequently influenced by direct and/or indirect multiple anthropogenic pressures, which impacts marine life. Those perturbations may act in a heterogeneous way with a different intensity and are related to the complexity of coastal ecosystems. To visualize all these interactions at a local scale, a methodology inspired from many researches has been implemented in order to search, identify, and classify coastal ecosystems according to their sensitivity to anthropic pressure exerted by coastal cities. Thus, producing vulnerability maps will be essential tools to local coastal managers. We have applied this methodology on five coastal municipalities in Algiers. Firstly, the environmental sensitivity of coastal ecosystems was assessed by analyzing these four sub-indices: biological sensitivity, geomorphological sensitivity, hydrodynamic characteristics, and pollution intensity. Secondly, an assessment of the anthropogenic pressures presented by each municipality was carried out. Five sub-indexes have been taken into consideration when conducting this assessment: human activities, infrastructures, vectors of pollution, urbanization, and regulatory protection. Then, vulnerability maps were produced by the overlapping of sensitivity and anthropic pressure maps. The results assessed for the environmental vulnerability indicated that most areas are moderately to highly vulnerable, especially in the municipalities of Bab El Oued, Rais Hamidou, and Ain Bénian. The analysis of the obtained results shows the potential applicability of this methodology because they accurately reflect the reality. Therefore, these results can be useful to decision-makers by providing them with a relatively rational decision-making tool to prioritize future management and planning efforts. Keywords Environmental sensitivity . Ecosystem vulnerability . Anthropogenic pressures . Pollution . Corrective actions . Algiers
Introduction The coastal zone is a complex, dynamic, and fluctuating space (Daeden 2015), maybe more than any other environment. It is subject to increasing demands from a growing human population that prefers to settle, live, work, and play in this narrow band (Tortell 1992; Small and Nicholls 2003). Estimates show that around 60% of the world’s population live near the coast (Doukakis 2005). The coastal zone is the site of multiple
Responsible editor: Vedula VSS Sarma * Mohamed Adlane Silhadi [email protected] 1
National School of Marine Sciences and Coastal Management, Campus Universitaire de Dély Ibrahim Bois des Cars, .B.P 19, Dély Ibrahim, Alger 16320, Algeria
activities, which interacts more or less strongly with the environment and can have significant impacts on the functioning and quality of the coastal system (Le T
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