Monitoring Agricultural Expansion in a Newly Reclaimed Area in the Western Nile Delta of Egypt Using Landsat Imageries

Taher M Radwan

doi:10.3390/agriculture9070137

Abstract

Detection and monitoring land use/land cover (LULC) changes using historical multi-temporal remote sensing data is greatly important for providing an effective and robust assessment of the human-induced impacts on the environmental conditions. It is extremely recommended for LULC studies related to evaluating the sustainability of changing areas over time. The agricultural sector in Egypt is one of the crucial pillars of the national economy. The amount of traditional agricultural land (Old Lands) in the Nile Delta had a significant decline over the past few decades due to urban encroachment. Consequently, several land reclamation initiatives and policies have been adopted by the Egyptian government to expand agricultural land in desert areas (New Lands) adjacent to both fringes of the Nile delta. Tiba district is one of those newly reclaimed areas located in the western Nile Delta of Egypt with a total area of 125 km2. The primary objective of this article was to identify, monitor and quantify historical LULC changes in Tiba district using historical multi-temporal Landsat imageries for six different dates acquired from 1988 to 2018. The temporal and historical changes that occurred were identified using supervised maximum likelihood classification (MLC) approach. Three major LULC classes were distinguished and mapped: (1) Agricultural land; (2) barren land; and (3) urban land. In 1988, Tiba district was 100% barren land; however, during the 1990s, the governmental reclamation projects have led to significant changes in LULC. The produced LULC maps from performing the MLC demonstrated that Tiba district had experienced significant agricultural land expansion from 0% in 1988 to occupy 84% in 2018, whilst, barren land area has decreased from 100% in 1988 to occupy only 7% in 2018. This reflects the successful governmental initiatives for agricultural expansion in desert areas located in the western Nile Delta of Egypt.

Highlights

Egypt has one of the world’s fastest growing and largest populations, with a total population of 100 million people [1]
Tiba district is located in both Beheira and Alexandria governorates, western of the Nile Delta, North of Egypt in a newly reclaimed desert region (New Lands). It is bounded by longitude 29◦ 530 to 30◦ 70 E, and latitude 30◦ 330 to 30◦ 410 N. It is mainly accessible through Alexandria-Cairo desert road and occupies a total area of about 125 km2 (12,527 hectares)
During the past three decades, the governmental desert land (New Lands) reclamation endeavors that have been established and developed, had massively altered the LULC changes over areas like Tiba district located in the western Nile Delta of Egypt

Summary

Introduction

Egypt has one of the world’s fastest growing and largest populations, with a total population of 100 million people [1]. The country’s total land area is 1 million km of which nearly 96% is vast arid deserts, and only 4% of the total land area of Egypt (The Nile Delta region) is inhabited [2,3] This dramatic population increase, and the limited inhabited land area has caused critical socio-economic and environmental problems, including an increase of unemployment levels, reducing living standards, and loss of productive agricultural land due to urban encroachment [3,4,5]. The unbalanced ratio between human and land resources is the main issue in Egypt Such a high annual non-stop population growth requires paying considerable attention to preserve the limited natural and land resources, to maximize agricultural productivity and to reclaim more agricultural land in the desert (New Lands) [4,5].

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion