Using remote sensing and geographical information systems for monitoring settlement growth expansion in the eastern part of the Nile Delta Governorates in Egypt (1975--1998)

Settlement expansion is a dramatically growing problem in the eastern part of the Nile Delta Governorates in Egypt, mainly because it is expanding into the fertile agricultural land of the delta. Furthermore, the lack of an adequate geographical and spatial database and the contradiction (opposite to another) of maps and figures make it impossible to prepare and implement logical plans. Planners need accurate and up-to-date information on the rate of settlement growth and the impacts of this growth on the use of agricultural land.In the remote sensing analysis, merging spatial convolution and co-occurrence texture filters was developed to enhance both classification and change detection analysis. High overall accuracies were achieved.Further analysis takes place within the GIS and spatial data environment to combine them with demographic and socioeconomic data to examine factors that affect present settlement growth. Besides identifying and analyzing the factors of settlement growth in the study area, the study introduces an analysis of the negative effects of settlement growth on reducing fertile agricultural land. The study successfully applies a comparative analysis of the loss of the old fertile agricultural land of the delta on one hand and the gain of reclaimed land for agriculture in the desert on the other hand.The research also produces a projection of population size as well as settlement growth and residential unit needs projections until the year 2026 using several scenarios to predict such growth by using different assumptions for each scenario. A selection of a single scenario produces final projection outputs. The study ends with recommendations in both remote sensing and GIS analysis and settlement development to provide scientists and planners with alternative suggestions and offers a basis for assisting policy and decision makers and city administrators to make better decisions concerning settlement growth.This research evaluates the settlement growth expansion in the study area by integrating remote sensing with the geographical information systems (GIS) analyses from 1975 to 1998. A combination of this integration with spatial data analysis was introduced to monitor, quantify, map, and project the settlement growth expansion.