ECOLOGICAL SENSITIVITY EVALUATION BASED ON GIS: A CASE STUDY IN HENGSHUI, CHINA

Hengshui City, located in China, serves as an ecological barrier for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The city prioritizes ecological civilization construction and actively promotes pollution control and ecological restoration. This study examines nine ecological factors from three categories: natural resources, terrain, and social factors. These factors include the digital elevation model (DEM), slope, rainfall, land use and cover (LUCC), normalized vegetation index (NDVI), net primary productivity (NPP), population, night light (NL), and soil erosion (SE). Using data from 2010 to 2020, we constructed an evaluation index system. We conducted a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the ecological sensitivity of Hengshui City by combining the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The results indicate that the comprehensive ecological sensitivity of Hengshui City can be categorized into four levels: mild sensitivity, moderate sensitivity, high sensitivity, and extreme sensitivity. Overall, Hengshui City exhibits mainly mild ecological sensitivity, with minimal changes in area over the study period. These research findings provide valuable insights for maintaining the health of Hengshui City's ecosystem and optimizing ecological management strategies.