Geo-Environmental Changes and Their Impact on the Development of the Limestone Plateau, West of Assiut, Egypt
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Geo-Environmental Changes and Their Impact on the Development of the Limestone Plateau, West of Assiut, Egypt Mahmoud H. Darwish1
•
Hanaa A. Megahed2 • Abd El-Hay A. Farrag3 • Asmaa G. Sayed3
Received: 28 March 2020 / Accepted: 25 August 2020 Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2020
Abstract One of the important projects that the Egypt country seeks to implement is the desert areas development, which contributes significantly to agricultural and urban development. Development of desert areas, especially agricultural development, should be carried out scientifically in terms of the use of available water resources, irrigation methods according to the type of soil and taking the geo-environmental risks into consideration. The objective of this research is to assess the geoenvironmental impact in the region under consideration and their effect on their natural components during their development phases. Estimating the rate of land-use/land-cover changes in the area is extremely important for the management of natural resources. Remote sensing and GIS techniques have been used to process the geological, topographical, landuse/land-cover and also locating high-risk areas that could be affected by flash flooding. This study showed that the study area comprises three land-cover classes: urban, agricultural and barren land. The expansion in the agricultural and residential areas was estimated from the Landsat satellite images from 1984 to 2018. The results had deduced the reasons for increasing the agricultural area and the validity of the western plateau lands for agricultural reclamation as well as land investment for residential projects such as Nasser city. The results indicate that the vegetated land increased by 9.68% and urban land by 3.17% after reclamation efforts were initiated. Keywords Geo-environment Geology Land use/land cover GIS and remote sensing Change detection Development
Introduction
& Mahmoud H. Darwish [email protected] Hanaa A. Megahed [email protected] Abd El-Hay A. Farrag [email protected] Asmaa G. Sayed [email protected] 1
Geology Department, Faculty of Science, New Valley University, El Kharga 72511, Egypt
2
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, Cairo, Egypt
3
Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut 71516, Egypt
Environmental studies are of great importance among scientific research studies, especially in desert areas under development. Development, whether agricultural or architectural, must depend on the environmental conditions and natural ingredients of the area. Location, geologic setting, topography, climatic elements, soil, and water resources are among the most reliable factors for the region’s extensive development. This study aims to define the spatiotemporal changes of the reclaimed land and to suggest proper management systems with flexibility to those changes depending on the available water resources, and to monitor the risk locations. The study area represents a part of
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