Environmental quality assessment of Assuit governorate using data observation and geospatial techniques

Abstract

The present paper aims to assess the quality characteristics of the available water bodies, air, and agricultural lands of Assuit governorate using spatial and laboratory analyses integrated with remote sensing techniques. To fulfill this aim, a field survey was conducted for identifying the dominant anthropogenic activities, collecting water and soil for further lab analyses of physical and chemical characteristics. Contamination indices and ecological risk of heavy metals in soil were calculated and assessed. Further, calibrated space-borne multispectral Landsat images dated 1999, 2009, 2019 and 2023 were processed to retrieve the Particulate Matter (PM10) to assess air quality over the governorate. A similar spatial distribution of PM10 over Assuit governorate was recorded during the four investigated years; 1999, 2009, 2019 and 2023. PM10 exceeded the allowable Egyptian threshold limits over the desert lands (150 µg/m3). Results reported the discharge of domestic wastewater into some irrigation canals as the main reason for elevating turbidity and Organic matter levels. Reasonable Electric Conductivity (EC) levels were recorded (277 to 1094.00 µs/cm) which showed good to permissible levels for irrigation. The investigated water parameters of the River Nile are coinciding with the Egyptian threshold limits. Remarkable fluctuations were observed in the levels of most of the soil characteristics in Assuit and the spatial analyses showed that levels of soil pollution are increasing southward which is confirmed by the positive correlation between the indicators of pollution. However, soil contamination and ecological indices were low in the whole governorate.

Keywords

• River Nile
• Soil analyses
• Air quality, remote sensing, spatial analyses
• Assuit Governorate