الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Rangelands in Egypt are located in arid environments and being degraded as animal numbers expand to meet a growing human population on a shrinking resource base. The object of this study was to map rangeland area in Wadi Umm Ashtan using high resolution satellite imagery, characterize rangeland vegetation, and estimating grazing capacity in these study areas using ground vegetation survey at wet and dry seasons. This study was carried out during the extended period from spring 2017 to autumn 2017 at Wadi Umm Ashtan area in the North Western Coast of Egypt (NWC). Rangeland attributes were estimated in wet and dry seasons, and rangelands vegetation measurements in seven representative sites were included plant density, coverage, frequency, and importance value. Sentinel 2 high resolution satellite imagery was used to map the major land cover and rangelands area in the study area. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and supervised classification were implemented and accuracy assessment of the produced classified map was conducted.
Results indicated that there were significant differences in rangelands vegetation characteristics as affected by the interaction between the different studied sites of Wadi Umm Ashtan and dry and wet seasons during 2017. The highest value of the plant coverage percentage of 47.8 % was recorded under site number seven, while the minimum value was obtained under the fourth studied site at the study area. Significant differences were found between the different studied locations and growth seasons in plant frequency, plant density, plant cover, and importance value. Overall accuracy of 83.57 % and Kappa Coefficient of 0.82 were achieved for the supervised classification of Sentinel 2 satellite image of the study area. The highest value of user’s accuracies of 100% was recorded in Water class, followed by 95 % and 85 % for rangelands and winter crops, respectively.
Results of estimating rangelands plants productivity of the primary 7 sites that represent Wadi Umm Ashtan study area during spring of 2017 showed that site number 6 had the lowest fresh plant productivity of 145.45 kg/ha, while site number 4 had the highest fresh plant productivity of 340.79. Moreover, site number 6 had the lowest dry forage production of 29.64 kg/ha, while site number 7 had the highest dry forage production of 75.62kg/ha.
Statistical analyses of the data showed that there were significant differences among the three sectors of the study area in the average forage productivity, total forage production, allowable use (35%), total forage allowed for grazing, and the grazing capacity (dry sheep equivalent DSE /6 months) of Wadi Umm Ashtan study area. Sector one had the highest average forage production of 75.6 kg/ha followed by sector two (51.7 kg/ha), while sector three had the lowest values of the average forage production of 48.4 kg/ha.
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Maps of allowable use (35%), total forage allowed for grazing, and the grazing capacity (DSE /6 months) of Wadi Umm Ashtan study area were prepared. Grazing capacity as dry sheep equivalent (DES) for 6 months period for the study was estimated by 87, 527, and 679 DSE for sector 1 to 3 of the Wadi Umm Ashtan study area, respectively. These findings could be valuable for the development of sustainable management plans of desert rangelands and Wadis in arid lands.