الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Egypt is an agricultural country whose socioeconomic growth is nearly completely dependent on land production. At the same time, prime agricultural land in the Nile Valley and Delta is being lost owing to soil degradation. The aim of this study is to assess the soil degradation over the different landforms in the Al-Saf district, Giza Governorate. Satellite data and Geographic Information System (GIS) have been employed to achieve the objective of the study. The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the study area produced from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission SRTM image and employed with landsat-8 image to delineate the soil types and landforms. The investigated area is dominated by four landforms including: flood plain (16648.49 feddan), piedmont (38654.17 feddan), valley (7036.90 feddan) and the plateau (9860.24 feddan). Then a semi detailed survey was carried out throughout the investigated area to define the major landforms and collecting soil samples. Land degradation has been detected using satellite-based indicators including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Salinity Index (NDSI) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI). The land degradation type, extent and severity level over the landforms were assessed. Results indicated that the flood plain is highly degraded by waterlogging and salinity due to human intervention in natural drainage and over irrigation. Soil contamination has been evaluated by estimating the Contamination Factor (CF) and Degree of Contamination (DC). only the soils of the valley suffer from Pb contamination, this is mainly related to the industrial pollution especially on the upper layer of the soils. |