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Modern pollen studies are proving increasingly valuable in the interpretation of fossil pollen assemblages, but relatively little work has been conducted in the arid and semi-arid parts of the world. In this study, surface samples from a range of vegetation types along the Mediterranean coastal lands of the north of Egypt were collected. The sites were arranged along three representative sea-landward transects at different points along the Nile Delta coast. Samples have been analyzed for their pollen content and the resulting data ordinated using multivariate techniques (detrended correspondence analysis - DECORANA). The groupings that emerge from this analysis are generally closely related to the vegetation from which they were derived, although it proved impossible to separate saline barren areas from salt marsh sites on the basis of their pollen rain.

In order to test the results against fossil material, two short profiles of alluvial sediment were excavated from two of the study areas, and the profiles analyzed for pollen. Ordination of the data from these soil sections provided information on the past history of the sites, mainly related to local successional processes in these maritime environments. The results illustrate the potential of surface studies as a basis for environmental reconstruction in the coastal region of the Nile delta.