INVESTIGATING THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT OF GEBEL EL-HAMZA AREA, NE CAIRO, EGYPT: A REMOTE SENSING APPROACH

This paper attempts to utilize observations extracted from remote sensing data sets and available published data (e.g., geologic and soil maps) to characterize the physical environment of Gebel El-Hamza area (area: (1116 km²) on the northeast fringes of Greater Cairo, Egypt. The term “physical environment” encompasses the climatic, geological, geomorphological and structural settings of the area, and the potential natural hazards (e.g., landslides, earthquakes, and flash flooding) that could affect it. This exercise should serve as an example for a preliminary database to be used for development purposes, urban planning, and as a reconnaissance tool to be utilized in detailed studies.

The generated digital products yielded the following: (1) eight geomorphologic units were mapped (gravely and sandy plains, Nile Delta flood plain, sand dunes, wadi deposits, Heliopolis depression, scarps, block hills and flat topped hills, (2) fault distribution, orientation (E-W, WNW-ESE, and NE-SW trending) and displacement (normal and strike slip faults) along these faults were revealed by superimposing the convolution filtering image, hill shade image and the contour map on the Landsat ETM image,

Preliminary investigation of the natural hazards in the study area indicates low probabilities for landslides and flash flooding. Earthquakes with magnitudes ranging from 3.5 to 5.4 were reported from areas proximal (< 25 km) to the study area and thus could potentially be hazardous to populations and properties. This will largely depend on the adopted building codes and engineering designs for urban settlements in the study area.