Land Cover Change Monitoring In Egypt Using Satellite Imagery

Abstract

An apt and effective automated methodology for monitoring land cover dynamics over time is of great importance to realize sustainable agricultural development.The present study focuses on the assessment of the trends and drivers of land cover change in Egypt for the last two decades (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019).An approach of multi-temporal mid resolution satellite images of ETM 2000, and OLI 2019 combined with visual interpretation, supervised classification and remotely sensed NDVI and NDWI images to enhance accuracy of land cover classification was used.Results showed that Egypt could be distinguished to several land cover classes; namely, "agro-forest areas", "shrubs, grasslands and sparsely vegetated areas", "cropland", "wetland", "artificial surfaces", "bare land" and "water bodies".Over the last two decades, there has been an improvement in land cover reached around 11976 km 2 (1.2 % of the total land area), simultaneously with the degradation of around 1817 km 2 (0.18 % of the total land area).The study showed a crucial evidence for a prominent increase in wetland and water bodies and the consequent hazards to the croplands.It is indicated that the application of multi-spectral satellite data proved inevitably efficient, reliable and fast methods and techniques.