US Egypt Cooperative Research: Assessing the potential of natural resources for land use planning and development west of Aswan, Egypt

一项新的发展走廊计划已经提出（El-Baz, 2007），以帮助缓解埃及尼罗河沿岸日益增长的人口过剩，这需要逐步将发展活动从尼罗河三角洲和河谷的西侧进一步向西扩展。阿斯旺地区是该走廊的12个地区之一，也是本研究的重点。PI将与埃及苏伊士运河大学的Fikry Khalaf博士合作，在阿斯旺地区开展一项试点研究，为土地利用规划开发多传感器数据和信息集成的新技术。缺乏充分、及时和综合的信息是尼罗河流域西部延伸开发延迟的主要原因。拟议的研究建立了一种多传感器方法，用于从各种卫星平台提取和整合地理空间信息，以便为阿斯旺西部的土地利用开发活动制作优先地图。新的卫星系统正在提供关于陆地表面和地下特征以及地形特征的改进信息。然而，在遥感图像中包含的现有信息与将这些数据转换成可用于地理信息系统（GIS）决策过程的信息层之间存在着重大差距。提出的多传感器数据融合和信息集成工作包括三个步骤：1)使用不同分类器和数据融合技术对数据集进行分类；2)集成多个分类器输出以生成高质量和更新的GIS建模输入层；3)设计GIS模型以生成阿斯旺西部地区的战略土地利用和优先级地图。这种优先地图将协助上埃及各省不仅在研究地区，而且在其他地方规划未来土地开发活动的进程，并最终将对这些地区居民的福祉产生积极影响。本研究要解决的主要问题是：我们如何从越来越多的不同和复杂的地球观测传感器中提取有关干旱土地和水资源的相关信息，以便将它们组合和集成到GIS模型中供决策者使用？此外，是否有办法简化这一过程（从数据汇编到决策支持），使其易于调整和应用于其他类似领域，从而大大降低制作土地使用优先地图的成本？拟议的研究涉及波士顿大学（BU）和埃及苏伊士运河大学（SCU）之间的合作。这一伙伴关系将促进新的多传感器融合和地理信息系统集成技术的发展，这些技术将在广泛的全球范围内发挥作用，并建立一个多学科的全球团队，以解决与干旱地区有关的日益严重的全球问题。它还为培养美国学生亲身体验和解决全球问题奠定了基础。pi计划在我们在这两个机构的研究生课程中使用这些数据集和技术。该项目由美国-埃及联合基金项目资助，该项目向两国的科学家和工程师提供赠款，以开展合作研究。

A new development corridor plan has been proposed (El-Baz, 2007) to help alleviate Egypt's growing overpopulation along the Nile River that entails gradually extending development activities from the western side of the Nile Delta and Valley further toward the west. The Aswan sector is one of twelve sectors in the corridor and is the focus of this research. In cooperation with Dr. Fikry Khalaf of Suez Canal University in Egypt, the PI will conduct a pilot study in the Aswan sector to develop new techniques for multisensor data and information integration for land use planning. The lack of adequate, timely and integrated information has been the main reason behind the delay in developing the western extension of the Nile Valley. The proposed research establishes a multisensor approach for geospatial information extraction and integration from a variety of satellite platforms in order to produce priority maps for land use development activities west of Aswan. New satellite systems are providing improved information on land surface and subsurface features as well as terrain characteristics. However, there is a significant gap between the available information contained in remote sensing images and conversion of these data into information layers that can be used in a geographic information system (GIS) for decision making processes.The proposed work on multisensor data fusion and information integration includes three steps: 1) classification of the datasets using different classifiers and data fusion techniques, 2) integration of multiple classifier outputs to produce high quality and updated input layers for the GIS modeling, and 3) design of a GIS model to produce strategic land use and priority maps for the western Aswan region. Such priority maps will assist the Upper Egypt Governorates in their planning processes for future land development activities not only in the study area, but also elsewhere, and will ultimately have a positive impact on the wellbeing of the inhabitants in those regions.Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Activity The main questions to be addressed by this research are: How can we extract relevant information on arid land and water resources from a growing number of disparate and sophisticated Earth Observation sensors so that they can be combined and integrated in a GIS model for use by decision makers? Furthermore, are there ways of streamlining this process (from data compilation to decision making support) so that it can be easily adapted and applied to other similar areas, thus substantially reducing the costs of producing land use priority maps?The Broader Activities Resulting from the Proposed Activity The proposed research involves collaboration between Boston University (BU) and the Suez Canal University (SCU), Egypt. This partnership will facilitate the development of new multisensor fusion and GIS integration technologies that will be useful in a wide global context, as well as building a multi-disciplinary global team to tackle a growing global issue related to arid regions. It also sets the stage for training US students to experience and address global problems first hand. The PIs plan to use the datasets and techniques in our graduate classes at both institutions.The project is funded under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to undertake cooperative research.