CORPORATION OF REMOTE SENSING AND GIS IN WATER MANAGEMENT AND LAND USE PLANNING IN EL-HAMMAM AREA,

The present work aims to use of GIS, remote sensing and soil data, as a mean for decision making in natural resources management and planning the sustainable land use in El-Hammam area, North-Western Coast of Egypt. The selected region represents one of the high priority regions for future development in the country. It lies between longitudes 29 ° 15 ` and 29 ° 30`E and latitudes 30 ° 45 ` and 31 ° N, with a total area of about 94752 acres. The sustainable land use was established based on: land capability and suitability, water resources availability, economic return from water and financial return from land and water. Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) are incorporated to execute the soil base map. Field survey is carried out to represent the SMUs by soil profiles. Laboratory analysis for the collected samples is done and stored as attributes in a geographical soil database linked with the soil map units. The soils are classified mainly as Typic Haplocalcids; Calcic Petrocalcids; Calcic Aquisalids; Calcic Haplosalids; Typic Aquisalids; Typic Torripsamments; and Lithic Torriorthents. Land capability assessment is done to define maps of the suitable areas for agricultural production using a capability model built in ALES software and the results are exported to GIS. Results indicate that the area currently lacks high capability and moderate capability classes. By improving the soil properties, th