Sustainable Development in Nasser Lake using the Integration of Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing Imagery and GIS

Water is considered one of the most essential elements for life on the earth. Egypt is one of the countries in the world suffering from the water shortage because of the global temperatures increase, decreased precipitation levels due to the climate changes. Furthermore, the misuse of water resources and inefficient irrigation techniques are additional factors worsen the water security in Egypt. Nasser Lake was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam (AHD) in 1960_s to control flooding, store the increased water and produce hydroelectricity.The objective of this research was to monitor and detect the changes in Nasser Lake using integrated techniques of satellite images and GIS. Two Landsat images acquired in 2000 and 2019 are used to investigate land cover changes in the lake and its surroundings. The findings indicated that Nasser’s Lake total area decreased from 5887.7 km² in 2000 to about 5364.4 km² in 2019. Five classes are obtained from classifying satellite images, namely: deep, shallow water, bare soil from type 1 and 2 in addition to quarries. Post classification change detection showed that deep water was 5485.4 km² in 2000 and decreased to be 4490.9 km² in 2019. The shallow water increased from 402.4 km² in 2000 to 573.5 km² in 2019.  Markov chains is applied to predict and simulate the future land cover changes from 2019 to 2050 to safeguard against the adverse effects and negative consequences of land cover changes and consequently achieve goals of sustainable development