Sustainability indicators for agricultural land use based on GIS spatial modeling in North of Sinai-Egypt

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture focuses on production that renews resources. Egypt has a lot of sustainability constraints such as salinity and alkalinity, lack of infrastructure and credit utilization. The current study focuses on assessment of sustainability factors for agricultural utilization through integrated biophysical, economic viability and social acceptability in the North Sinai area. Sustainable agricultural spatial model (SASM) was developed using Arc GIS 10 to identify and classify the area, according to sustainability degree of agricultural utilization, where the factors of productivity, security, protection, economic viability, and social acceptability in the different mapping units were assessed. The investigated area is classified into three different classes, I, II, are covered in about 7% of the total area where land management practices are marginally below the threshold for sustainability located in the northern part of the study area, where the sustainability values are ranging between 0.1 and 0.3. The areas characterized as class III do not meet sustainability requirements where the sustainable values <0.1. The current work shows how the decision-makers can increase the land sustainability classes I, II to 10% of the total area by controlling just two factors: social and economic factors.

Keywords

• Sustainability indicators
• Agricultural land
• Remote sensing
• GIS
• North of Sinai-Egypt