Multi-temporal analysis of Coastal Urbanization and Land Cover Changes in Suez City, Egypt Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Youssef, Youssef M.; Gemail, Khaled S; Sugita, Michiaki; Saada, Saada A.; Teama, Mostafa A.; AlBarqawy, Mohammed; El Shinawi, Abdelaziz; Khedr, Fares

doi:10.21608/fsrt.2022.132752.1061

Multi-temporal analysis of Coastal Urbanization and Land Cover Changes in Suez City, Egypt Using Remote Sensing and GIS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Department of Science and Mathematical Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University, Suez 43518, Egypt

² Professor of Environmental Geophysics, Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Zagazig

³ Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan

⁴ Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Suez University, Suez 43518, Egypt

⁵ Department of Geological and Geophysical Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University, Suez 43518, Egypt

⁶ Zagazig University, Environmental Geophysics Lab (ZEGL), Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Zagazig 44519, Egypt

⁷ Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Suez University, Suez,43518, Egypt

10.21608/fsrt.2022.132752.1061

Abstract

Urbanization, which is a global contemporary issue, is rapidly growing in coastal territories with harmful repercussions and unprecedented land cover changes. Therefore, detecting land use/land cover (LULC) change is highly imperative for decision-makers to prepare and implement sustainable developmental projects. The present study attempts to assess coastal urbanization and associated LULC change in Suez city (Egypt) using remote sensing and Geographic Information systems (GIS) techniques. To this end, four multi-temporal Landsat (TM, ETM, and OLI) images acquired in 1986, 2000, 2013, and 2018 were processed and classified. The constructed LULC maps were deemed to be accurate with overall accuracies of over 92%. The change detection results indicate that the urban and vegetation areas were significantly expanded at the expense of dry soil due to rapid development projects over 32 years (1986-2018). The urban area increased dramatically from 28.04 to 52.06 Km2 by more than 80%, while dry bare soil declined by 47.33% over the study period 1986-2018. The vegetation area expanded by 14.52% during 1986-2000 and continued to increase by 25.15% until 2013, then declined by 4.08% in 2018. Results have also shown that most of the fading vegetation areas were mostly transformed into urban areas over the last 32 years. Finally, the urban expansion was strongly governed by population growth, while the natural physiographic conditions constrained the shape of the city. The findings of this work can provide the urban planners with valuable information on LULC changes for more rational planning.

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