REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS FOR CHANGE DETECTION IN THE COASTAL REGION 
OF THE NILE DELTA, EGYPT 
Abdel Rahman, S.I.; and M.A. Yehia 
Nat. Auth. for Remote Sensing & Space Sci., Cairo, Egypt 
Working Group 2, Commissin VIII 
KEY WORDS: Coastal changes, landuse-landcover, Remote Sensing, Nile Delta. 
ABSTRACT 
The coastal district between Baltiem and Gamasa towns represents the only remaining desert area in the northern part of the 
Nile Delta. This area covers about 450 km”, and is occupied by various types of landforms including: beach, sandy plain, 
sand dune, wetland, sabkha, and evaporite crusts. The development plan of this region is facing a number of constrains which 
affect negatively the sustainability of development activities in this area. These constrains include: coastal erosion and 
accretion, sea level rise, and sand dune encroachment. The negative impact of these phenomena has been studied, in detail, 
using the multi-temporal analysis of remote sensing data as well as field and laboratory investigations. Monitoring changes in 
landuse-landcover has also been carried out using unsupervised classification of Landsat TM and SPOT images in years 1990 
and 1995 respectively. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
The Nile Delta forms a unique depositional environment in 
which sedimentation is controlled by a combination of 
environmental factors such as waves, possible sea level 
rise, currents, tides, and regional discharge. As result, it is 
subjected to frequent changes. 
The Nile Delta coast is a dynamic system, which in historic 
times was in equilibrium or experienced an excess of 
sediments due to the large quantities of sediments 
discharged to the Mediterranean Sea through the various 
Nile branches (about 57 M tons) particularly during the 
annual flood periods. With the construction of the nine 
barrages (dams) along the main course of the river 
commencing at the beginning of the 20th Century. The 
Nile Delta coastal zone has exhibited sediment deficiecy 
and thus erosion, especially around the three main 
headlands, i.e. Rosetta, El Burullus, and Damietta. This 
alarming erosion has been particularly great since the 
construction of the Aswan High Dam in 1964, which 
trapped essentially all the flood sediments in its storage 
basin (Fanos, 1997). Accordingly, monitoring changes 
along the northern coastal region of the Nile Delta become 
a very important issue. Erosion caused by wave current 
becomes very active, inducing new shape of the coastline 
and affected many human activities, including; 
infrastructure, cultivated lands, urban areas and beachs. 
The continuous monitoring of the physical changes that 
occur in the north coastal region provides a good 
understanding, and accurate timely information for the 
decision makers. Then an action plan for landuse planning 
and management of the coastal area could be achieved. 
Several studies have been carried out to monitor changes in 
the coastline of the Nile Delta using different remote 
sensing techniques; e.g., (Sadek et al, 1993; Frahy et al, 
1994, El Raey et al., 1995). Changes on soil productivity of 
the cultivated land due to sea water intrusion were studied 
by many authors, e.g., (Abdel Rahman and Sadek, 1995). 
Sand dune encroachment on infrastructure, cultivated land, 
and urban area was also investigated by (El-Asmar and 
Abdel Rahman, 1997). 
M 
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0. Sat apps IDE = = ) 
Mediterranean Sea 1% 
Burullus 
     
  
  
NILE — DALTA 
  
  
31 004 
Fig. (1) Location ot the study area 
xf 30 3t o0 fx 32 00 
Fig. (1) 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998