ASSESSMENT OF CHANGES OF LAND USE/LAND COVER OF A COMMAND AREAE IN NILE DELTA, EGYPT, USING REMOTE SENSING AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM TECHNIQUES

Abstract

This study aimed to detect the changes of land use of Meet Yazid commend area, in Kafr Al-Shikh and Al-Gharbia governorates during the period from summer 2013 to winter 2015 using remote sensing and GIS techniques. In this study, RapidEye images, dynamic GPS and IMAGINE objective feature extraction module were used. The results showed an increase of cultivated areas of rice from 30.06 % to 31.57 %, while wheat increased in the year 2014 and 2015 from 27.3 % to 37.9 % of the total area respectively. On the other hand, there was a decrease of cultivated areas of maize and cotton in years 2013 and 2014 from 24.64 % to 23.29 % and from 15.26 % to 14.68 % of the total area, respectively. Clover cultivated areas decreased in years 2014 and 2015 from 21.5 % to 18.5 % of the total area, respectively. The changes of the crops in these areas may be due to the change in the social and agricultural economics. The results also showed that the rate of urban encroachment increased during the study periods where results recorded increasing in urban areas from 13.64 % of total areas in summer 2013 to 14.85 % of total area in winter 2015. The study cleared that increasing in total cultivated area of crops throughout the period from summer 2013 to winter 2015 except the period summer 2014 where occurred decreasing in total cultivated areas of crops for the previous sessions. The changes in cultivated area was accompanied by changes in the areas of fish ponds in the same period, which is due to transformation in the pattern of land use from crop cultivation to aquaculture, in some areas. The results also show the ability of RapidEye images of high differentiation for land use classes as well as obtained results with high accuracy more than 90 % for all studied seasons.