Analysis of urban growth at Cairo, Egypt using remote sensing and GIS

The main objective of the present study was to highlight and analyze the exchange between the land cover components at Cairo with focusing on urban area and agricultural land between 1973 and 2006 using Landsat satellite data with the aid of Digital Elevation Models (DEM). The techniques utilized in this investigation involved a rigorous supervised classification of the Landsat and the DEM images. Results showed that urban area of Cairo was 233.78 km2 in 1973 and increased to 557.87 km2 in 2006. The cut-off from agricultural lands was 136.75 km2, whereas urbanization into the neighboring desert was estimated at 187.32 km2 for the same period. The direction of urban sprawl was mainly controlled by regional topography. Urban sprawl was attributed mainly to accelerated population growth.