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Review Article Volume 8 Issue 3
Monitoring and evaluation of desertification and land degradation processes on northwestern coast Egyptian territories
A. Gad, A. M. Ayman, R. Mansour
Received: September 22, 2026 | Published: October 19, 2026
Citation: Gad A, Ayman AM, Mansour R. Monitoring and evaluation of desertification and land degradation processes on northwestern coast Egyptian territories. Art Human Open Acc J. 2026;8(3):166-174. DOI: 10.15406/ahoaj.2026.08.00287
Abstract
The submitted research activities and outcomes include assessing and mapping the environmental sensitivity and desertification of the northwestern coast of the Arab Republic of Egypt Located in the hyper-arid climatic zone. The desert (96% of Egyptian territories) is characterized by its abundance of natural resources, such as arable land, pastureland, economic minerals and wild animals and plants.
Egypt suffers from an increase in population density in the Nile Delta and Valley,
necessitating the establishment of new, integrated urban communities in desert areas. The
priority given to Egypt’s northwestern coast is clear, given its history as a geographical
extension of the Western Desert. It is one of the most important development areas, as it is
one of the regions recorded in history as a granary during Roman civilization. This is due
to its abundant groundwater resources and natural biodiversity, along with the adaptation of
its inhabitants to these unique environmental conditions.
Land use/ cover were mapped, on bases of multi-temporal satellite images (Landsat TM
2004 and sentinel 2018), applying several contrast-stretching processes. Rectification of
the scenes studied was performed using enough GCP’s, distributed randomly all over the
images. The studies revealed that northwestern coast represents productive and adaptive
biodiversity areas in Egyptian Western Desert. Environmental sensitivity leads to the
coastal sand dunes formation and encroachment, which leads to the intrusion of salty
seawater into lands with highly porous sandy soils, leading to salinization and waterlogging
of the lands, leading to a reduction in the productivity of these areas. It could be concluded
that developing a quantitative model of concept will identify the sensitivity factors, which
supports decision-making for sustainable development.
Keywords: assessing, mapping, Environmental sensitivity, desertification, northwestern coast, Egypt
©2026 Gad, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.