الفهرس 
1. INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The current investigation aims to study the geomorphological
and pedological characteristics including soil classification and land
capability evaluation for soils in the area located at southeast of ELSadat
city, Menoufia governorate, Egypt. Calculating soil available
water using soil water characteristic curve (SWCC), testing and
validating Van Genuchten (VG) model in simulating SWCC,
developing regression equations to predict the expected soil salinity
over time and land use/land cover change detection within 20 years
are also carried out. The integration of Remote Sensing (RS) and
Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques was used to
perform this work. This work could be presented important
information about the potentiality of land resources for proper
sustainable agriculture of these soils.
The interpretation of geomorphic map produced using RS and
GIS technology indicated that, there are three main identified
geomorphic units including eight landforms in this area. These units
are Alluvial Plain (Depression, Low and High Terraces), Aeolian
Plain (Low, High Terraces and Plateau) and Pedi Plain (Low and High
Terraces). Nineteen soil profiles were selected representing these
landforms.
The land and site features are observed and registered. Most of
soil profiles were dug deep down to 150 cm. Profiles were
morphologically described, and then disturbed and un disturbed soil
samples were collected representing the subsequent layers in each profile for integrated physical and chemical analyses. Also, some
available irrigation water samples were collected and analyzed
especially for land capability evaluation.
The results could be summarized as follows:
• Site examination of the studied soils exposed that; the soils have
almost flat to gently undulating and gently sloping topography.
The elevation of the studied area varies between 10 to 95 m. above
sea level. Land surface and most of studied soils are slightly
gravelly to very gravelly. Most of studied soils are deep to very
deep and mostly have well to excessive drainage system.
• The studied soils have light texture mostly gravely sand and loamy
sand with rapid hydraulic conductivity. The soils vary between
weak to moderate sub angular to granular structure and some
layers have single grains. Their consistence varied from slightly
hard to soft when dry and friable to loose when moist according to
their content of fine particles. Most of these soils have brown color
degrees with hue of 10YR and some of them have reddish yellow
color with 7.5 YR.
• The physio-chemical data of the studied soils revealed that, the
most of these soils have slightly alkaline reaction, are non-saline
and not sodic. Moderate salinity and sodicity effect are found in a
few soils in limited studied areas that having moderately deep soil
materials. The studied soils are slightly to moderately calcareous
according their CaCO3 content. Organic matter (OM), cation
exchange capacity (CEC) and gypsum are low.
• Spatial distribution maps for the main soil properties in the studied
area are produced using the GIS technique software.
• The studied soils were classified up to sub great group level
according to Soil Survey Staff (2014). Most of the studied soils
(about 98.35%) haven’t any diagnostic sub-surface horizons.
Therefor these soils are classified under Entisols whether as Typic
Torripsaments (62.25%) or Typic Torriorthents (36.10%).
Features of Sodic sub horizon was detected in very small soil area
(1.65%) therefore, these soils are classified under Aridisols as
Sodic Haplocambids.
• Evaluation of soil salinity during 22 years in comparison with a
previous studies on some soils belongs to the studied geomorphic
units indicated a clear decrease in salinity. This could be correlated
with the expanded and continued agricultural practices in these
areas. This, also, can be indicated that, there is no current or future
risk of soil salinization, especially with the good quality of
available irrigation water resources in these areas. This encourages
agricultural expansion horizontally and vertically and increases
productivity per unit area of cultivated soil.
• The SWCC were measured and thus the irrigation requirements,
i.e. soil available water, were determined. The model of VG was
chosen and tested for the further use in estimating SWCC in
similar soils.
• Land capability evaluation was done using the integration between
ALES-Arid model and ArcGIS software based on the main soil characteristics, soil fertility and irrigation water quality indices.
Accordingly, most of the studied soils (92.17 % of the total area)
are affiliated to the fair capability (C3) class, mainly due to their
sandy texture. Only a few soils (4.52 %) have a good capability
(C2) class as well as about 3.31 % have a poor capability (C4) class.
• The spatial-temporal changes in land use/land cover (LULC)
classes (agricultural, barren and urban lands) were detected using
the classification and post-classification processes of the studied
Landsat images over a 20 years’ period from 2000 to 2019. The
overall changes in LULC classes during the period from 2000 to
2019 indicated that, there is an increase in the total area of
agricultural land and built-up land at the expense of the barren land.
• Integration of RS, GIS was used to produce different necessary
maps and figures for the resulted data.