Analytical Assessment of Ecological Security and Environmental Vulnerability Using the LOPCOW–MABAC Method

Abstract

This study analytically examines the ecological threat levels of 207 countries using data presented in the Ecological Threat Report 2024. Four key indicators—demographic pressure, food insecurity, impact of sea-related events, and water risk—were utilized, and all criteria were integrated into a decision matrix to enable a comparable assessment of countries’ environmental vulnerability. The relative importance of the criteria was determined using the LOPCOW method, which is based on data variation and eliminates human subjectivity. The resulting weights were calculated as follows: demographic pressure (25.83%), food insecurity (25.59%), impact of sea-related events (26.78%), and water risk (21.79%). These results indicate that the criteria have a nearly equal level of influence on the formation of ecological threats. Following the weighting process, countries were evaluated using the MABAC method and ranked according to their overall ecological threat scores. The findings show that Greenland, Bermuda, Malta, Germany, Slovakia, and Estonia are among the countries with the lowest threat levels, whereas Niger, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Benin exhibit the highest levels of vulnerability. The results further reveal that ecological threats are predominantly concentrated in low-income regions characterized by arid climatic conditions, limited natural resource management capacity, and heightened sensitivity to climate shocks. This confirms the strong relationship between environmental vulnerability and socio-economic development levels. Overall, the study provides a data-driven analytical framework that can support the formulation of sustainable development policies and contributes to a systematic understanding of cross-country ecological risk disparities while highlighting priority regions for environmental intervention.