Download Investigation into land-use change in two contrasting areas in the

Catchment and Coastal Environments Research Group
Postgraduate project
Investigation into land-use change in two contrasting areas in the
Nile Delta of Egypt
Rawad Echtaie
Room 201, 12 Kirkby Place
T: +44 (0) 1752 233090
F: +44 (0) 1752 233054
Director of studies: Dr Andrew Williams
Other PhD advisors: Professor Geoff Wilson
Rawad was awarded his Masters’ degree from Egypt in 2002.
His project’s title was: “the role of women in developing
small industries in some rural areas of Assiut
governorate”. He has been awarded a scholarship from
University of Damascus to develop his PhD studies at University
of Plymouth. The title of his PhD is “Investigation into landuse change in two contrasting areas in the Nile Delta of
Egypt”.
Introduction
The research question
addressed in this project
focuses on land-use
change in the eastern
part of the Nile Delta of
Egypt (See attached
map).
Understanding
land-use change has
been
particularly
important in arid and
semi-arid regions, where
agricultural
land
is
limited, and where food
security and agricultural
production are facing
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many constrains such as lack or even absence of precipitation, poor quality soils and
increasing population growth.
Research aim and objectives
The thesis aims to examine the application of the DPSIR (driving forces, pressures, state,
impacts, and responses) framework for better understanding of agricultural land-use change
in the rural-urban fringe in the eastern part of the Nile Delta of Egypt. The study will, first,
provide a theoretical understanding of key factors that determine land-use change in the Nile
River Delta of Egypt, and, second, investigate the relationships between these factors and
land-use change. To address these aims the study has the following objectives:
1. To analyse patterns of land-use change in the eastern part of the Nile Delta over the
past two decades using remote sensing information and other land-use data.
2. To investigate the importance of the different components of the DPSIR framework
(driving forces, pressures, state and responses) for explaining land-use change in the
eastern part of the Nile Delta.
3. To analyse the inter-relationships of components of the DPSIR framework for the
eastern part of the Nile Delta.
4. To evaluate and critique the application of DPSIR as a conceptual framework to
assess land-use change in the rural-urban fringe of arid areas more generally.
Research methods used in this study
The research addressed in this thesis has used a case study approach as a key
methodological step. The study has used five different sources of data in order to meet the
objectives of the research. These data are:
1. remote sensing data (using ERDAS Imagine 8.7 software)
2. a questionnaire data
3. interviews with farmers and local experts from the two study areas
4. participant observation
5. census data (Population growth, crop production, crop area and productivity)
Preliminary results
The Initial results suggested that transportation cost, private source subsidies, farmers’
educational level, and role of women in the agricultural production are the most important
driving forces that affect land-use change in the research region. These results have
confirmed the hypothesis of multi-causality theory in the explanation of the DPSIR model
used as a conceptual framework for this research.
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