MONITORING VEGETATION COVER CHANGE IN EASTERN NILE BASIN USING REMOTE SENSING

Abstract

As a result of this research, a technique is now made available to continuously monitor the dynamic changes in the green cover within the Eastern Nile basin. The monitored irrigated land areas in dry and wet seasons are used to calculate the water consumption based on provided actual evapotranspiration and interception data. The technique aims at producing consistent spatial and temporal maps for green cover in the Eastern Nile in both seasons (wet and dry) using available remote sensing data. Several remote sensing indices (water and vegetation) are tested to determine their applicability in detecting the green cover changes. Among these indices, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index is chosen to map the green cover and giving a unique pattern for every land use upon analyzing the time series results. The method has been applied on Sudan main irrigation schemes (Gezeira- Rahad – Kenana) and the time series vegetation cover maps are generated for the study areas over the period from 2000 till 2016. The resulted classification maps were compared to the FAO classification maps generated at the Wapor project, and the results prove to be consistent and water consumption is calculated accordingly.