MONITORING LAND–USE CHANGE DETECTION IN THE AREA WEST TAHTA, SOHAG GOVERNORATE, UPPER EGYPT

Due to the growing of population in Egypt during the last few decades, this leads to great changes in agricultural area, and urbanization special in the desert areas of Egypt. In this study we utilized the available record of multitemporal Land sat Thematic Mapper (Tm) and Egypt sat image to produce land cover / land use map of the area in 1987 and 2009. Also we used the post-classification change detection analysis to detect the change in the agriculture, urban areas and the change in the River Nile during the period from 1987 to 2009.

The post-classification change detection analysis shows that agriculture development increased by 1785.96 Hectare through the study period with average annual rate of land reclamation 81.18 Hectare/ year. While the urban area increased by 2231.24 Hectare with average annual rate 101.42 Hectare/ year the increase of the urbanization and the growth occurring through encroachment into the farmer old cultivated lands. The change in the River Nile is not so much is reached to 138.32 hectare in the study period with average annual rate 6.29 Hectare / year. The result of this study show that, the accuracy are quantify with the land cover changes and also delineate their spatial patterns, which display the efficiency of land sat in evaluating landscape dynamics over a particular time span. This data are very useful for natural resources management.