Saeed Mosmar Alawad, Saeed 
MULTI TEMPORAL REMOTELY SENSED DATA CARTOGRAPHY FOR SUSTAINABLE NATURAL 
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: GEDAREF REGION, EASTERN SUDAN 
SAEED MOSMAR ALAWAD 
UNIVERSITY OF ALNELAIN 
DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY 
11121 KHARTOUM 
SUDAN 
Paper number: 23 
KEY WORDS: Sensed data, multi temporal, mapping, land use/land cover, monitoring, sustainability 
ABSTRACT 
Sudan as large country of Africa (with 2.5 million sq. Km) does not posses sufficient maps to support conservation 
projects as well as sustainable natural resources management. Although cartographic database is essentially required for 
sustainability the financial situation is difficult in Sudan. The Sudan natural resource is rabidly changing. Gedaref 
Region-the East Central Sudan-was one of the richest natural resources base area of Sudan. The Region is known to 
have undergone tremendous and radical land use/land cover changes with in the last three decades. These changes can 
view not in the total high reduction in the natural vegetation of the land, but more seriously in the vast increases in land 
degradation. Gedaref natural resources degradation deals with overtime using multi-date remotely sensed data (1973 
and 1993) to monitor, researching and understand the complexity land degradation causal factors. Land degradation 
researched through surface characteristics e.g. land use changes, deforestation, changes in density cover, increasing 
drainage density etc. The complex database displayed in cartographic form is to aid conservation and land use planning 
for sustainability. 
1. Introduction 
Natural resources namely soil, vegetation cover, water etc are of renewable nature found in ecosystem, which be 
utilized to satisfy basic human needs. In Sudan natural resources are severely degraded as a result of increases in human 
and economic pressure. As a results of food shortage in the Sudan large scale semi-mechanized rainfed farming 
introduced to the central clay plain along the semi-arid to sub-humid climatic zone. Land use/land cover changes and 
practices are the main process hinder sustainability in the area. Gedaref Region-study area- (figure 1) is one of these 
areas with richest natural resources base area but challenging with environmental problems. Land resources are depleted 
at increasing speed. The first challenge to Gedaref Region is to put clock back. For sustainable management natural 
resources potentialities should be inventor, depletion should be halt, and the degraded one should be resolved through 
implementing effective land use planning. This requires information on the resources for understanding the degradation 
causes (physical, economical and social). Informations to aid conservational project implementation are questionable in 
developing countries including Sudan. The main point is how can we use the available data sources and simple 
equipment to meet the gabs in land information (resource potential causal process of degradation and its trends). 
Cartographic product has to be promoted as a main agent to provide land information for rational resources 
conservation and preservation of resources qualities. However, land degradation is a wide terms used in different ways 
and caused by various processes but in this study refers to forest degradation and surface water erosion. 
2. Study area characteristics 
Gedaref region is restricted to the entire Southern part of the former Eastern Region of Sudan at present Gedaref state 
which adjoins the north western high lands of Ethiopia (F igure 1). This 33600 sq. Km. Area (approx.) bounded by the 
longitude 34 30 (east of Greenwich) to the west and the Ethiopian border to the east and runs from latitudes 11 00 to 14 
30 N. it is dominated by semi mechanized farm and grazing by trans-human nomads. The area characterized by semi- 
level plain. A low ridge (basaltic) rises some one hundred meters above the ground level of the plain extending from 
Galabat in the southern part to Gedaref town in the extreme northern part (Whitman, 1971). The geological units in the 
area arranged as follows: superficial deposit (Quaternary), volcanic rock (Tertiary-basaltic), Nubian sandstone 
(Mesozoic) and basement complex (pre-camperian) The area dominated by almost semi level plain and brownish 
  
1294 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000.