Agriculture is a key sector of the Egyptian economy. To achieve sustainable development and land use planning for agricultural lands, computerized land evaluation systems are commonly used. Moreover, geographic information systems facilitate spatial modeling of terrain attributes. Thus, the main objective of this study is to apply the Cervatana model for forecasting the general land use capability for possible agricultural uses in the Bustah 3 area, which represents a newly reclaimed area in Egypt. To accomplish the objective, model input and output data were coupled in a GIS environment to obtain the spatial variability of terrain attributes based on georeferenced satellite imagery. The results showed that the erosion hazard (r) and soil factors (I) are considered key limitations in this area. The spatial distribution indicated that around 70% of the Bustan 3 area has a good capability for agriculture practices (S2), while about 30% of the area is moderately capable (S3). According to these results, three different scenarios were suggested to enhance the land capability. The first concerned soil salinity adjustment by leaching, the second increased the vegetative cover, and the third scenario was to adopt both attributes simultaneously. Spatial distribution of the three scenario outputs indicated that the percentage of (S2) acreage increased from 70% to 73, 93, and 96% for the first, second, and third scenarios, respectively. Thus, the Bustan 3 area is well suited for agriculture production using good soil and water management practices as well as suitable land use planning.
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