Temporal variation of vegetation status and the contemporary soil quality index in a reclaimed area, Egypt

ABSTRACT

With limited natural resources in Nile Valley and Delta, reclamation of new lands is needed. The investigated farm is one of the old reclaimed areas in the eastern Nile Delta, covering 140.73 km². The main objectives of this research are; 1) assessing the vegetated areas using the normalized difference vegetation index and maximum likelihood classifier on multi-temporal remotely sensed data of 1978, 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014, and 2018, 2) detecting the changes in the vegetated areas over the assigned dates, and 3) evaluating the soil quality index (SQI) based on soil parameters (salinity, pH, sodium adsorption ratio, and organic matter) for the dominant cultivated crops in the study area. Eighty soil samples, at different depths, from 35 locations, were checked. The results reveal that the reclamation processes had been established in the 1980s using pivots irrigation system. In 2018, the vegetated area covered 73% of the study area, compared to 0% in 1978. High SQI is observed at a range of 0.8 to 0.9 that covers 75% to 93% of the study area. The results of this research can assess the decision-makers for more sustainable management plans in the study area and the Mediterranean region that share the same circumstances.

KEYWORDS:

• Nile Delta
• maximum likelihood classifier
• normalized difference vegetation index
• soil quality index

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).