How convincing is the evidence that changing agricultural land cover has affected water salinity in Lake Qarun?

Abstract

The aim of the present investigation is to evaluate the extent to which changing agricultural cover has affected water salinity in Lake Qarun, Egypt. A review of literature has been carried out to evaluate the extent to which agricultural land cover can be linked to increased salinization of lacustrine environments. A decision tree classifier approach is carried out to map land cover, and combined with salinity measurement derived through the use of the Water Absorption Salinity Index (WASI) to ascertain a quantitative association between land cover and water salinity. The results show a strong relationship between agricultural land cover and salinity at 92.7% significance level and urban land cover is associated with salinity at 81.2% significance level. The approach used in this study can be useful to monitor and assess the causality of change in saline lake environments and the accuracy may increase with improved technology.