Modeling the artificial lake-surface area change in arid agro-ecosystem: A case study in the newly reclaimed area,...

Land reclamation is critically required to overcome the environmental and anthropogenic challenges in arid lands. The Western Nile Delta region, Egypt, is experiencing rapid reclamation processes for agriculture expansion. West Nubaria (781.92 km²) is one of the newly reclaimed areas in the Western Nile Delta. Due to extensive agricultural practices and poor management, an artificial saline lake formed in this area. Two primary goals of this research; 1) monitoring the annual change in the lake surface area between 2013 and 2017. 2) Predicting the areal extent of the lake surface in 2020, 2030, and 2040 based on two management scenarios. The maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) was applied to distinguish the LULC classes in 2017. Additionally, the annual modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) calculated between 2013 and 2017. Then, the land change modeler (LCM) was utilized to predict the 2017 free water area based on the resulted MNDWI maps of 2013 and 2016 using two scenarios. With the high agreement between the actual and predicting free water area of 2017 (Kappa index = 0.93), the LCM was applied to predict the future surface water expansion in 2020, 2030, and 2040. Three land use/land cover (LULC) distinguished in 2017; agricultural land, uncultivated land, and free water class based on MLC. The MNDWI results reveal that there was an increase in the surface water area from 593 to 883 ha between 2013 and 2017, respectively. The LCM results indicate that expected increases in the surface water areas of 1068, 1711, and 2267 ha in 2020, 2030 and 2040, respectively (scenario 1) and 1065, 1726, and 2343 ha in the respective dates (scenario 2). These extend will exist over the agricultural and uncultivated lands surrounding the lake causing land degradation. Two solutions were suggested to combat the waterlogging and land degradation in this area by evacuating the artificial saline lake.