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Track: Environmental Management
Yasser Ayad
Universite de Montreal
C.P. 6128
Succursal Centre-ville
Montreal, QU H3C-3J7
CANADA
Telephone: 514-343-2373
Fax: 514-343-2338
E-mail: ayady@ere.umontreal.ca
Michel Guenet
The Use of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems in the Assessment of Visual Attributes: Case Study of the Northwestern Coastal Zone of Egypt
Defining Issue: The landscape of the northwestern coastal zone of Egypt has witnessed dramatic changes during the past few decades because of the national interest aimed at increasing the economic benefits of coastal zones. This may have a direct impact on the visual quality of the landscape. GIS Solution: Geographic information systems (GIS) techniques were widely used to analyze different characteristics of the landscape. The feasibility of using remotely sensed data to delineate landscape units and assess their relative visual quality was interpreted by authors in the beginning of the 1990s, which has proven to provide considerable savings in time. In the present paper, the main objective is to assess the change in the visual attributes of the landscape using techniques of remote sensing (RS) and GIS. Methodology: An approach to prepare remotely sensed data is carried out to delineate different physiographic units. Different visual attributes were selected for the present study such as land
use/cover diversity, activity (degree of naturalness), and landform. Four different dates were considered: 1955, 1977 (aerial photographs), 1987, and 1992 (SPOT satellite images). GIS techniques were applied to calculate different attributes and to assess the changes that have occurred during the specified period of study. In brief, it may be concluded that the study area under investigation is witnessing changes in its visual qualities that have to be taken into consideration in planning and managing its resources. This calls for an urgent act in order to include visual quality assessments in national plans for landscape management, especially for regions of high tourist importance. Furthermore, the integration of RS and GIS to study visual attributes evolution has proven to be time-saving tools that can detect and manage different landscape attributes, thus giving the opportunity for decision makers to act promptly on specific planning problems for the benefit of viable and sustainable
landscapes. Software: ARCEDIT module of ArcInfo Version 7.0.4 was used to build themes for digitized aerial photographs, digitization was carried out using AutoCAD r12, and satellite image processing was done with ERDAS IMAGINE 8.2. Major analysis procedures were carried out with the ARCGRID module of ArcInfo and database handling was done with TABLES.
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