Assessment and Spatial Analysis of Sensitivity to Desertification in Wadi El Natrun, Northwestern Egypt using MEDLAUS model

Land degradation is a global environmental issue, given the various negative impact on socio-economic and ecological implications. It leads to reduced production capacity in addition to soil erosion, physical /chemical /biological /economic land deterioration, and long-term loss (or degradation) of vegetation. When a severe deterioration in drought areas called the process of desertification i.e. arid, dry sub-humid and semi-arid areas. Desertification processes reduces the productivity of the soil and as a result effect on food stocks. The main objective of this study is integrating remote sensing data and a geographic information system (GIS) to evaluate the environmental sensitivity for desertification in Wadi El Natrun, Egypt based on the Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use (MEDALUS) approach. The collected soil data; from description of represented soil profiles and analysis of soil samples, in addition to climate, plant cover, and management data were considered for assessing the sensitivity of desertification. The obtained results showed that 10.4 % of Wadi El Natrun area is considered severe sensitivity to desertification as a result of alkalinity and salinity, while the moderately sensitive area occupies approximately 10.93 % of the study area. The low sensitive one exhibits 76.3 %. This area is described by high soil quality because of the study area is one of the new development areas which were not affected by the factors of desertification. It can be concluded that the desert extension of El-Beheira Governorate (i.e. Wadi El Rayan) is one of the areas that possess valuable land resources which should be considered for future land reclamation projects. Similar international studies are recommended to be achieved with the use of multi-criteria GIS modeling (i.e. MEDALUS) which considered all relevant factors in the form of thematic layers for easier implementation and assessments. Present study represents one of the initial attempts to use the MEDALUS model for desertification assessment in the desert extension of El-Beheira Governorate.