Changes in land use and land cover in arid southern Mediterranean on the long term using remote sensing and GIS - A case study of northwest Egypt

The study area is located along the northern Mediterranean coast of Egypt between El-Hammam town, to the east and El-Alamean town, to the west. The area, from the seacoast to the Libyan plateau is composed of calcareous formation of Pliocene and Pleistocene age, covered by recent sediments. The wind and fluvial activities rework the sediments. Adverse human activities (i.e. grazing, collection of plants for fuel and erection of coastal resort villas) have undoubtedly hindered the natural development of the vegetation and the soils. The current research aims to detect the land use / land cover changes as indicators of land degradation on the long term. A number of SPOT XS satellite images dated 1987, 1988, 1993, 1996 and 1997 were digitally enhanced and geometrically corrected. Different remote sensing techniques were applied for the whole scenes, including visual and unsupervised classification. Field investigation was carried out on bases of the preliminary image analysis. Hybrid classification technique was carried out for the images of 1988 and 1997 using both ground truth and spectral classes of a window area having long term data record. It was possible to construct two reliable land use / land cover maps for the years 1988 and 1997. Comparing the two sets of data showed the saline and hyper saline areas, which were changed during this period. It was found that area of short individual plants has increased on expense of tall individual ones. Resort houses and artificial limestone quarries as well as fig orchards that are maintained by medium to high level agricultural practices, have replaced coastal dunes and other ridge components. The European Commission (DGXII INCO DC) funded the CAMELEO project, in the context of which the current work was performed.