الفهرس 
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Abstract
During the past decades, excessive ongoing growth in the economies and demographics around the world has caused many countries to consider the redirection of urban growth to their peripheral regions due to the rapid population increment and limited development opportunities in the core regions. More specifically, some of these countries, have found no promising development substitute other than directing the regional policies to the vast desert areas to lead the way for future developments, as the case in Egypt. Relevantly, Egypt faces many population and spatial constraints in the narrow Nile Valley and Delta that hinders any further development in these core regions. Particularly, this is why Egypt’s National Urban Development Plan for 2050 directs the future developments in its desert areas with the conception of a stringent national commitment towards achieving ambitious, dynamic and innovative sustainable development, which aligns with Sustainable Development Strategy in Egypt’s vision 2030. This goes in parallel with the global movement towards considering the sustainable development principles in all development fields, including urban and regional planning. Accordingly, this thesis aims to develop a methodological framework for incorporating sustainable development principles in the planning process of strategic plans for desert areas in Egypt.
A research methodology of two stages was carried out in this thesis. The first stage is a three-rounded Delphi survey, which reached a consensus between international and national experts around the most appropriate sustainability themes, targets and planning actions for planning and development in desert areas. The second stage is based on a case study approach, to explore and investigate the actual consideration of sustainable development dimensions, substantive and procedural, in the planning process of strategic plans in desert areas. Evidence from the case studies was drawn from a documentary review of two strategic plans in Matrouh Governorate and semi-structured interviews with key actors in the planning process.