Land Use /Land Cover Change Detection Analysis for Eastern Nile Delta Fringes, Egypt

Enass A Elimy ,Maha Z Omar ,Ahmed E Hassan ,Gamal Abdel Nasser ,Peter Riad

doi:10.7176/jees/10-10-07

Abstract

Egypt has turned its attention to develop many new areas for agricultural development, such as the fringes of the Nile Valley, the eastern, western fringes of the Nile Delta, and also to the desert areas. In this research, integration of GIS and remote sensing (RS&GIS) were used in the South Eastern Nile delta region to follow the change in land use/cover and to assess the change in the agricultural lands in the desert areas. Three satellite images for years 1992, 2002, 2015 were used to produce the land use/cover maps using the maximum likelihood method by selecting five classes for land cover as (Agricultural, water, desert, and urban). The results of the accuracy assessment were evaluated as 85%, 86.2%, and 87.5% for the years 1992, 2002, and 2015. The change detection maps were produced between (1992-2002), (2002-2015) and (1992-2015). To follow up the increase in reclaimed areas that previously planned for reclamation by the National Water Resources Plans. More change detection statistics were performed. The results showed an increase in the area of agricultural lands within the desert regions, with values that are aligned with the areas proposed in the previous national water plans. The area of reclamation lands of the existing reclamation projects started before 1992 increased by 17527.6 (feddan) from the year 1992 to 2015 compared to 115436 feddan for the reclamation lands planned by the Land master plan from (1992 to 2017) for the same period of years. Finally, we can consider the integration between GIS and remote sensing data as an important and powerful tool for accurately detection land use/land cover changes over the study area. Also, these tools were considered very useful for the planning of sustainable management for water resource plans. Keywords: Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS), Land-use/ cover, change detection, the South Eastern Nile delta region. DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-10-07 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

Highlights

The continuous growth of population increases dramatically in Egypt, especially in the last century
It was noticed that the agricultural land has increased from the year 1992 to 2015 by (183,018 feddan) by a percentage as 8.6% this increase in the agricultural land was subjected to the extensive reclamation projects in the area since 1980 to 2015 related to the management plans and strategies applied to Eastern Nile delta
The results showed that there is an increase in the urban areas during the period between years 1992 to 2002 by 5.4% but recorded a decrease by a value of 3.4% from 2002 to 2015. the areas covered with water recorded an increase of 0.5% from 1992 to 2002 this is maybe due to the construction of new canals in addition to the appearance of some logging areas in lands near the Ismailia canal

Summary

Introduction

The continuous growth of population increases dramatically in Egypt, especially in the last century. Many factors have a great effect on the rapid and dynamic change in the study area, such as a) continuous increase of reclamation land by increasing the cultivation areas .b) the changing of irrigation source from groundwater to surface water or conjunctive use. Many previous studies have attempted to assess and detect the land use/cover change in different areas in the Eastern Delta region. M. et al, 2009 used a hybrid classification approach to asset and monitor land use/cover changes associated with the agricultural and urban expansion in the Eastern Nile Delta especially in the desert fringes by classifying Landsat images. Abo EL Magd, 2011 Applied the data of remote sensing through the period (1990-2008) for Eastern Nile Delta Region, the author www.iiste.org categorized the study area according to land cover and water resources. Observing and quantifying the changes of the land cover for the classified land use maps between 1992, 2002, and 2015.by integration of remote sensing data and GIS (RS&GIS) considered important and powerful tools for accurately detection land use/land cover changes over large areas

Objectives

Results

Conclusion