INT. J.

REMOTE SENSING, 20 OCTOBER, 2004,

VOL. 25, NO. 20, 40794089

Detection of land use/land cover changes for the northern part of the
Nile delta (Burullus region), Egypt

KH. M. DEWIDAR
Department of Environmental Science, Faculty of Science, Mansoura
University, New Damietta, Box 34517, Egypt; e-mail: khdewidar@yahoo.com

(Received 17 January 2003; in final form 22 December 2003 )

Abstract. The monitoring of land use/land cover changes along the north part
of the Nile delta, Egypt is very important for the planner, management,
governmental and non-governmental organizations and the scientific com-
munity. This information is essential for planning and implementing policies to
optimize the use of natural resources and accommodate development whilst
minimizing the impact on the environment. To study these changes along the
study area, two sets of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data were used. TM
data are useful for this type of study due to its high spatial resolution, spectral
resolution and low repetitive acquisition (16 days). A post-classification
technique is used in this study based on hybrid classification (unsupervised
and supervised). Each method used was assessed, and checked in field. Nine land
use/land cover classes are produced. The overall accuracy for a 1984 image is
78% and for a 1997 image is 80%. The objective of this study was to detect land
use/land cover changes, and to assess the nature of future change following
construction of the international coastal road which crosses the study area.

1. Introduction
Land use/land cover changes are important elements of the global environ-
mental change processes (Dickinson 1995, Hall et al. 1995). The detection and
monitoring of change using satellite multi-spectral image data has been a topic of
interest in remote sensing. Several techniques for accomplishing change detection
have been formulated, applied and evaluated. A common method for the detection
of land use change is to compare two or more images covering the study area at
different dates. Change detection generally employs one of two basic methods:
pixel-to-pixel comparison and post-classification comparison (Martin 1989, Green
et al. 1994). The first method is a pixel-by-pixel combination of multi-date images
without classifying the data. This pixel-to-pixel method has two major types of
variations: image differencing (Toll et al. 1980) and image ratioing (Nelson 1983).
The second method compares two or more separately classified images of different
dates (Pilon et al. 1988, Fung and Zhang 1989, Johnson and Howarth 1989, Frihy
et al. 1998). Other types of change detection techniques have also reported (Jensen
1996). One such technique is principal component analysis (Fung and LeDrew
1987, Eastman and Fulk 1993). Post-classification detection is considered to be one
of the most appropriate and commonly used methods for change detection (Jensen
International Journal of Remote Sensing
ISSN 0143-1161 print/ISSN 1366-5901 online # 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/01431160410001688312
4080 Kh. M. Dewidar

et al. 1993, Jensen 1996, Dewidar 2002). This method involves comparing two
independent classified land use/land cover maps from images of two different dates.
The aim of this study was to analyse land cover/land use changes between 1984 and
1997 for the Burullus region, Egypt, using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data
and to assess possible future changes following construction of the international
coastal road, which crosses the study area.

1.1. Study area

The Burullus region lies on the eastern side of the Rosetta branch of the Nile
River, occupying a central position along the Mediterranean Nile delta coast of
Egypt. It extends between longitudes 3030 and 3110 E and latitudes 3121 and
3035 N (figure 1). The total area of Burullus region is about 2068 km2, includes the
water body of the lake. Burullus Lake is considered the second largest lake of the
Nile delta, which is about 53 km long, 13 km wide and has water depths ranging
from 0.5 to 2.5 m (Frihy and Dewidar 1993). Burullus Lake is connected to the sea
at its north-eastern edge through the Burullus inlet, which is about 250 m wide and
5 m deep. The northern border is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a strip
of land covered with sand bars and dunes. Seven drains and fresh water canals are
connected to its eastern, southern and western shores. The lake barriers are sandy
and range from 0.4 to 5.5 km in width. They are generally v1.5 m above mean sea
level, with beach face slopes ranging between 5 and 13. Low relief backshore and
foredunes characterize the western barrier. The eastern barrier is narrow and
backed by coastal barchans dunes. These dunes encroach landward onto a
cultivated coastal flat.
The agricultural year of Egypt has three crop seasons. The winter season starts
from October to December and ends between April and June. Its main crops are

Figure 1. The Nile delta coast of Egypt and the study area (Burullus region).
 Detection of land use/land cover changes 4081

wheat, barley, berseem, lentils, winter onions and vegetables. The summer crops
cotton, rice, maize, sorghum, sesame, groundnuts, summer onions and vegetables
are sown from March to June and harvested from August to November. A third
growing season known as nili is a delayed summer season where rice, sorghum,
berseem and some vegetables are grown. A piece of land cannot be planted in both
summer and nili crops in any 1 year because nili and summer cropping seasons
overlap.

1.2. New international coastal road

The new coastal road passes through the northern part of Egypt from Libya in
the west to Palestine and Israel at the east. This project was started in April 1995 at
different sites and was finished in June 2002. The aim of this construction project
was to connect all the northern African Mediterranean countries with the southern
countries of Europe. The greatest benefit of this road is that it will shorten
transportation times both inside and outside Egypt. Also, from the perspective of
urban planning, it will attract settlements alongside it (figure 2). It is thus very
important to monitor these changes as they occur. The northern part of the Nile
delta coast is monitored for the following reasons: it contains the main income
sources of Egypt (trades, industries, agricultures, social, tourist area). Six
governorates or administrative units are located along this important part. It
contains four lagoons (Maryut, Idku, Burullus and Manzala) (figure 1). It contains
high variation from biodiversity of natural plants, wetlands and birds. It has
suffered from many problems such as beach erosion, land subsidence, sea-level rise,
water pollution, land encroachments, water logging, and bad management.

2. Data and methodology

Two sets of Landsat-5 TM images dated 12 June 1984 and 23 April 1997 for
Path 175 Row 38 were used for the analysis. A sub-area of 2380 by 1850 pixels
covering the study area was extracted. The 1997 data were geometrically corrected
to the Universal Transverse Mercator Projection with a 30 m grid. Several well
distributed geographic control points obtained from 1 : 50 000 scale topographic
maps were used to calculate the geometric transform. A sub-scene of the full TM
image containing the study area was resample using the IDRISI program
(WINIDRISI 1997). The 1984 image was then registered to the 1997 geocoded
image by scene-to-scene resampling. This involved the use of linear regression to
calculate coefficients for the first order linear transformation equations. A root
mean square error (RMSE) evaluation was then performed to assess image to map
rectification accuracy. The RMSE for the rectified images were v0.5 pixel. A
contrast stretch with 1% saturation was performed for each band in each date to
enhance those landscape features of particular relevance to this study. An
examination of the band correlation matrix produced from a principal components
analysis (PCA) of all the original bands for each date indicated that bands 3, 4 and
5 had low correlations. So a false colour composite image for each date was created
assigning the colour blue to TM3, green to TM4 and red to TM5. False colour
composites can help us to visualize land cover/land use without any enhancement
processes. So, the new coastal road can be detected easily from a false colour
composite of the 1997 image (figure 2). Also, in this study post-classification change
is used and will be discussed in detail in the following section.
4082 Kh. M. Dewidar

(a)

(b)

Figure 2. False colour composites for (a) 1984 and (b) 1997 images.
 Detection of land use/land cover changes 4083

2.1. Post-classification change

The direct multi-date classification is based on the single analysis of a combined
dataset of the two dates in order to identify areas of changes (Singh 1989). Classes
where changes are occurring are expected to present statistics significantly different
from where change did not take place and so could be identified. Unsupervised
classification was carried out on the two datasets of the images separately, using a
histogram peak cluster technique to identify dense areas or frequently occurring
pixels (Lillesand and Kiefer 1979, Eastman 1997). The cluster module was carried
out firstly for fine generalizing level clustering, retaining all spectral classes. Based
on the histogram of the clustering results, 13 well-defined spectral classes are
shown. Secondary, the cluster module is used again by defining the number of
classes for it. So, 13 classes were produced by unsupervised classification for each
date. Each class was checked in the field using Garmin 38 GPS. More than 40
ground data sites were visited and checked in the field.
Supervised classifications were formed for each date following the field survey
by selecting representative classes for each class. A minimum of 120 pixels was
selected in the training areas for each class. The training areas were selected on the
basis of the unsupervised classified image and field survey. Using IDRISI, the
polygons around each training area were digitized and assigned a unique identifier
for each land use/land cover type (Eastman 1997). A spectral signature file for each
class was subsequently created. These signature files were used by maximum
likelihood classifier to categorize the continuum of spectral data in the entire image.
The classification accuracy of each land use/land cover type of the image was
evaluated using a stratified random sampling design. In this study, 1000 sample
points on the classified image using IDRISI software are formed for each date. A
confusion matrix was produced, from which the overall accuracy and kappa index
of agreement for each land use/land cover category were computed. In this study,
there were some difficulties in distinguishing between different water classes as the
Burullus Lake has a severe pollution problem (Dewidar and Khedr 2001). To make
a simple comparison between the two different image dates, four classes for water
in image 1984 were grouped to form one water class (table 1). Also, three water
classes in image 1997 were grouped to form one water class. Class 12 and class 13
were grouped to represent urban class (table 2). In addition, the area for each land
use/land cover category was extracted. Hence, nine different land use/land cover
categories are produced for each date (table 3). A median filter was applied to each
classified image to reduce local variation in the land use/land cover maps.

3. Result and discussion

Resource utilization issues, and development methods, are becoming increas-
ingly important, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with rapidly growing
population such as Egypt. Also, Egyptian people with a low level of education and
low income tend to settle quickly around new development projects such as occur at
Alexandria city and make slum areas (Lawrence et al. 2002). So, remote sensing
data such as that from Landsat TM is a powerful tool for monitoring and updating
information on such developments. A stratified random sampling design was
adopted in the accuracy assessment. For the 1984 land use/land cover map, a total
of 1001 pixels were randomly selected, which were checked with reference data
(ground data) in the field. The result shows an overall accuracy of 78% and a kappa
index of agreement of 0.7403 (table 1). In terms of Producers accuracy, two classes
shows bad results like class 9 and class 11, while in terms of users accuracy, all
 4084
Table 1. Classification accuracy assessment for the 1984 image.

Reference data
Row User
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 total accuracy (%)
1 163 3 166 98.19
2 256 43 15 314 81.53
3 90 5 17 2 114 78.95
4 12 58 1 7 1 79 73.42
5 18 57 3 1 79 72.15
6 50 54 3 4 1 112 48.21

Kh. M. Dewidar
7 6 15 1 22 68.18
8 1 3 33 6 2 45 73.33
9 2 16 1 1 20 80.00
10 16 16 100.00
11 2 6 8 75.00
12 4 1 13 18 72.22
13 4 4 8 50.00
Column total 163 259 172 101 62 82 18 39 45 26 13 14 7 1001
Producers accuracy (%) 100.0 98.84 52.33 57.43 91.94 65.85 83.33 84.62 35.56 61.54 46.15 92.86 57.14

Class 1~background; class 2~water 1; class 3~grassland; class 4~water 2; class 5~cultivated lands; class 6~bare soil; class 7~sand z natural
vegetation; class 8~sand dune; class 9~water 3; class 10~shrub; class 11~urban (residential homes and rural villages); class 12~water 4; class
13~wetlands.
Overall accuracy: 781/1001~78.0%; overall kappa~0.7403.
 Table 2. Classification accuracy assessment for the 1997 image.

Reference data
Row User
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 total accuracy (%)

Detection of land use/land cover changes

1 292 292 100.00
2 216 2 4 40 262 82.44
3 70 14 84 83.33
4 8 23 44 22 97 45.36
5 3 64 13 1 81 79.01
6 4 46 3 3 56 82.14
7 9 21 6 36 16.67
8 13 6 2 21 61.90
9 12 5 2 19 63.16
10 4 10 1 17 58.82
11 2 14 21 66.66
12 1 12 13 92.31
13 1 1 100.00
Column total 292 224 107 48 165 66 6 13 22 16 19 17 5 1000
Producers accuracy (%) 100 96.42 65.42 91.67 38.79 69.70 100 100 54.54 62.50 73.68 70.59 20.0

Class 1~background; class 2~water 1; class 3~shrub; class 4~water 2; class 5~cultivated lands; class 6~bare soil; class 7~water 3; class 8~sand
dune; class 9~sand z natural vegetation; class 10~wetlands; class 11~grassland; class 12~urban (residential homes); class 13~urban (rural villages).
Overall accuracy: 800/1000~80.0%; overall kappa~0.7571.

4085
4086 Kh. M. Dewidar
Table 3. Results of hybrid classification for 1984 and 1997 images showing area of each
class (km2), class percentage and area change (km2).

1984 1997

Land use/cover Land use/cover Area

Class name (km) (%) (km) (%) changed (km2)
1 Water (sea and 1645.8 53.28 1109.2 38.02 2536.6
inland water body)
2 Shrub 449.5 14.55 674.8 23.13 z225.3
3 Cultivated lands 248.8 8.10 556.8 19.09 z308.0
4 Bare soil 355.7 11.52 257.0 8.81 298.7
5 Sand dune 142.4 4.61 52.5 1.80 289.9
6 Natural vegetation 73.3 2.40 87.6 3.00 z14.3
covered sand dune
7 Wetlands 22.1 0.70 49.8 1.71 z27.7
8 Grassland 96.5 3.10 49.8 1.71 246.7
9 Urban (rural villages z 54.7 1.77 79.9 2.74 z25.2
residential homes)

classes except class 6 and class 13 were over 70%. For the 1997 land use/land cover
map, a total of 1000 pixels were selected. These were checked with training sites,
which were taken in the field. The result indicated an overall classification accuracy
of 80% and a kappa index of agreement of 0.7571 (table 2). In examining the
producers accuracy, the two classes (class 5 and class 13) showed significant
confusion. The accuracy assessment of the classification could be better achieved if
we have reference data such as aerial photographs or land use/land cover maps for
the study area.
Using unsupervised and supervised classification, nine land use/land cover
classes were produced from image 1984 and image 1997, respectively (figure 3). The
overall accuracy of the classification procedure was estimated by calculating the
percentage of the classified pixels (those pixels in the major diagonal of the matrix)
from the total number of all classes. Three main classes have increased rapidly in
the study area (Burullus region). The urban class, which represents all rural villages,
residential homes, has increased from 54.7 km2 in the 1984 image to 79.9 km2 in the
1997 image (table 3). The cultivated class has increased due to reclamation, drying
projects at the south-eastern part of Burullus Lake and reclamation processes for
sand dunes. Wetlands areas have increased due to an increase in water table level,
which may be attributed to seawater intrusion. Shrub class has increased from
449.5 km2 at 1984 to 674.8 km2 at 1997 due to silting processes inside the lake. Also,
natural vegetation, which covered sand dunes, has increased from 73.3 km2 at 1984
to 87.6 km2 at the 1997 image.

4. Summary and conclusions

A post-classification technique is used in this study based on hybrid
classifications (unsupervised and supervised). Nine land use/land cover classes are
produced. The overall accuracy for the 1984 image is 78% and for image 1997 is
80%. Three main classes (urban, cultivated lands and wetlands) have increased
rapidly in the study area (Burullus region). The urban class has doubled during the
period (19841997). Also, the cultivated lands class has increased due to
reclamation and drying projects at the southern eastern part of Burullus Lake.
The sand dune class has decreased due to reclamation processes and human
 Detection of land use/land cover changes 4087

(a)

(b)

Figure 3. Land use/land cover classes of the study area in (a) 1984 and (b) 1997.

intervention (using sand for construction processes and drying processes). Wetland
areas have increased in size due to an increase the water table level, which may be
attributed to seawater intrusion. Shrub class has increased from 449.5 km2 at 1984
to 674.8 km2 at 1997 due to silting processes inside the lake. Also, natural
vegetation increased from 2.4% in 1984 to 3.0% in 1997. Due to the deficiency of
land use/land cover maps for the study area; satellite remote sensing can be used to
generate the necessary dynamic information for surveying and monitoring land use/
land cover in arid regions such as the Nile delta of Egypt.
4088 Kh. M. Dewidar

Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thanks for Professor Paul Mather (School of Geography,
Nottingham University) for reviewing this manuscript. Also, the author is
extremely grateful to his colleagues in the Institute of Graduate Studies and
Research (remote sensing lab), Alexandria University, for helping him with field
surveys and ground observations.

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