" Desertification Impact on El- Minya area, South of Nile Valley, Egypt "

Abstract

Soil desertification defined as soil deterioration in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid zones due to various factors among which are climatic change and human activities.

Desertification problems are recently studied by many investigators, countries, and organizations.

Egypt is mainly a desertic country as the deserts cover more than 97% of its total area and the rest in Nile valley and Delta. 65 Million people are living in this narrow strip of land. This high pressure of. population cause many environmental problems and accelerate dese11ification processes caused by either climatic or human factors.

Desertification phenomena is clearly observed in certain regions. El-Menyia governorate is one of these regions. This current study aims a1:

• Using recent areial photos to produce physiographic soil map with publication scale 1 : 200,000 & 1 : 650.000.

• Detecting salinization, alkalization and water table depth of El­ Menyia soil during the last 50 years.

• Monitoring urban encroachment on the cultivated areas within this period as well as, the fragmentation of land ownership and the rate of land trespass.

• Calculating the rate of sand dunes encroachment at the western side, and assessing soil loss by wind tunnel test.

• Determination of the soil loss after the over - flooding 111 selected wadies at the eastern side.

• Follow up the changes in the productivity ofEl-Menyia soils.

• Follow up the geomorphological changes of the island inside the river Nile.

• Follow up the changes in the biomass ofEl-Menyia soils.

• Production of final map of the desertification hazards in 1 El-Menyia governroate.

This study is one in a series of studies started in 1979 ans still gomg on in the soil department, Cairo University using the aerial photo-interpretation and other remote sensing techniques, Fig (1) and Table (1).