TY  - SER
AU  - Bahnassy,Mohamed
AU  - Yehia,Hytham
TI  - Limitations and implications for Egyptian soil spatial data infrastructure
KW  - Soils
KW  - Research
KW  - Egypt
KW  - Geographic information systems
KW  - Remote sensing
N1  - Includes reference
N2  - The land master plan (LMP) of Egypt was issued in 1986, as a joint cooperation between the Egyptian Government represented by Ministry of development, new communities and land reclamation; and kingdom of the Netherlands, represented by Ministry of foreign affairs directorate general for international cooperation. Euroconsult-Pacer consultants carried out the activities, based on the results of check-surveys of the high dam soil survey (FAO, 1965), and new reconnaissance and semidetailed soil studies performed by General Authority for Rehabilitation Projects and Agricultural Development (GARPAD) in 1985. The LMP included maps for land capability, land management categories and soil units, at scales 1:250,000 (reconnaissance) and 1:50,000 (semidetailed). The present study aimed to create a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) in Geographic Information System (GIS) environment, for West Nubaria region, using 3 adjacent maps. Each map sheet was digitized separately, and processed to create the topology. Attribute data associated with each polygon included soil unit, land capability class, and land management categories. Up to this point, no limitations were encountered in building-up separate geodatabase. Problems started to occur when creating a seamless coverage for the three map sheets. The tirst and most important limitation was the inconsistency among the polygons boundaries at the edge of two map sheets. This represented a serious outcome, since each of the polygons had different attributes. Edge matcbing failed at tbis point. Different processing tecbniques were elaborated (union and merging), and eacb metbod resulted in a different output, depending on whicb map is cbosen first for the processing. None of tbe above mentioned tecbnlques produced a satisfactory result. Anotber encountered limitation was tbe discrepancy in tbe calculated acreage of eacb mapping unit between tbe report and tbe GIS database. Tbis migbt be attributed to metbodology employed in measuring tbe 1986's areas using tbe planimeter, and tbe error associated witb these measurements. Moreover, land capability classes were Incompatible wJtb tbe results obtained using recent software. The main implications for tbese limitations are: i) To apply tbe new tecbniques of Remote Sensing (RS) to map tbe different soil units, especially in vast desert and bare areas; ii) To determine tbe location of soil observations by Global Positioning System (GPS); and iii) To transfer all tbe gatbered data into GIS environment for processing and manipulation
UR  - http://nile.enal.sci.eg/EALE/2007/JAES/607/3/34.pdf
ER  -