Comparative assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of 10 deltas : work document

Background information about: Nile delta (Egypt), Incomati delta (Mozambique), Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (Bangladesh), Yangtze (China), Ciliwung (Indonesia), Mekong (Vietnam), Rhine-Meuse (The Netherlands), Danube (Romania), California Bay-Delta, Mississippi River Delta (USA

West-Nil-Delta-Projekt: POSEIDON-Fahrt 388, Logbuch POS388

R/V POSEIDON cruise P388 was the fourth expedition to the West Nile Delta taking place within the West Nile Delta project. It was also the third time the WND project was using R/V POSEIDON. From 13 July to 4 August 2009, a team of 10 scientists and technicians was on board to deepen our insights on the mud volcanoes "Giza" and "North Alex". During the cruise, project leader Dr. Warner Brückmann (WB) and P388 chief scientist Dr. Jörg Bialas (JB) put the latest information and pictures into this expedition log

ARTMAP Neural Network Classification of Land Use Change

The ability to detect and monitor changes in land use is essential for assessment of the sustainability of development. In the next decade, NASA will gather high-resolution multi-spectral and multi-temporal data, which could be used for detecting and monitoring long-term changes. Existing methods are insufficient for detecting subtle long-term changes from high-dimensional data. This project employs neural network architectures as alternatives to conventional systems for classifying changes in the status of agricultural lands from a sequence of satellite images. Landsat TM imagery of the Nile River delta provides a testbed for these land use change classification methods. A sequence often images was taken, at various times of year, from 1984 to 1993. Field data were collected during the summer of 1993 at88 sites in the Nile Delta and surrounding desert areas. Ground truth data for 231 additional sites were determined by expert site assessment at the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing. The field observations are grouped into classes including urban, reduced productivity agriculture, agriculture in delta, desert/coast reclamation, wetland reclamation, and agriculture in desert/coast. Reclamation classes represent land use changes. A particular challenge posed by this database is the unequal representation of various land use categories: urban and agriculture in delta pixels comprise the vast majority of the ground truth data available in the database. A new, two-step training data selection method was introduced to enable unbiased training of neural network systems on sites with unequal numbers of pixels. Data were successfully classified by using multi-date feature vectors containing data from all of the available satellite images as inputs to the neural network system.National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship; National Science Foundation (SBR 95-13889); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-I-409, N00014-95-0657); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-0l-1-0397)

Minimizing the residual topography effect on interferograms to improve DInSAR results: estimating land subsidence in Port-Said City, Egypt

The accurate detection of land subsidence rates in urban areas is important to identify damage-prone areas and provide decision-makers with useful information. Meanwhile, no precise measurements of land subsidence have been undertaken within the coastal Port-Said City in Egypt to evaluate its hazard in relationship to sea-level rise. In order to address this shortcoming, this work introduces and evaluates a methodology that substantially improves small subsidence rate estimations in an urban setting. Eight ALOS/PALSAR-1 scenes were used to estimate the land subsidence rates in Port-Said City, using the Small BAse line Subset (SBAS) DInSAR technique. A stereo pair of ALOS/PRISM was used to generate an accurate DEM to minimize the residual topography effect on the generated interferograms. A total of 347 well distributed ground control points (GCP) were collected in Port-Said City using the leveling instrument to calibrate the generated DEM. Moreover, the eight PALSAR scenes were co-registered using 50 well-distributed GCPs and used to generate 22 interferogram pairs. These PALSAR interferograms were subsequently filtered and used together with the coherence data to calculate the phase unwrapping. The phase-unwrapped interferogram-pairs were then evaluated to discard four interferograms that were affected by phase jumps and phase ramps. Results confirmed that using an accurate DEM (ALOS/PRISM) was essential for accurately detecting small deformations. The vertical displacement rate during the investigated period (2007–2010) was estimated to be −28 mm. The results further indicate that the northern area of Port-Said City has been subjected to higher land subsidence rates compared to the southern area. Such land subsidence rates might induce significant environmental changes with respect to sea-level rise

Developing a preliminary recharge model of the Nile Basin to help interpret GRACE data

GRACE data provides a new and exciting opportunity to gain a direct and independent measure of water mass variation on a regional scale, but the data must be combined with hydrological modelling to indicate in which part of the water cycle the mass change has occurred. Processing GRACE data through a series of spectral filters indicates a seasonal variation to gravity mass (±0.005 mGal) thought to relate to the downstream movement of water in the catchment, and delayed storage from groundwater, following the wet season in the upper catchment. To help interpret these data a groundwater recharge model was developed for the Nile Catchment using the model ZOODRM (a distributed modelling code for calculating spatial and temporal variations in groundwater recharge). ZOODRM was an appropriate model to use for this work, due to the lower data demands of the model, relative to other groundwater models, the ability of the model to use entirely remotely-sensed input data, and the added functionality of runoff routing. Rainfall (NOAA data) and ET data were sourced from the FEWS NET African Data Dissemination Service. Geological data was sourced from the digital geology map of the world, landuse data from the USGS and the DEM data from ESRI. Initial model results indicate groundwater recharge across the basin of 0-4mma-1, with obvious considerable spatial variability. The results indicate the importance of groundwater in storing rainfall, and releasing it slowly throughout the year in different parts of the catchment. Only by modelling this process can GRACE data be reliably interpreted hydrologically. Despite only a qualitative interpretation of the GRACE data having been achieved within this preliminary study, the work has indicated that the ZOODRM model can be used with entirely remotely-sensed data, and that sufficient data exists for the Nile Basin to construct a plausible recharge model. Future work is now required to properly calibrate the model to enable closer comparison of the Nile GRACE data

Roles of small ruminants in the rural livelihood improvement: comparative analysis in Egypt

The study focuses on the assessment of the contribution of sheep and goats to reduce poverty and vulnerability in rural farming systems of three agro-ecological zones in Egypt: the pastoral area of North West Coastal zone (Matruh), the irrigated areas in the Nile Valley (Sohag governorate) and the oasis area in the West Desert (New Valley governorate). An empirical study on 90 farms in the three agro-ecological zones on different social and economic indicators related to poverty gave indicators on the roles of sheep and goat in different farm types, according to resource endowment (land, livestock, capital, etc.) and human resources. The results show different contributions of animal species to household livelihood according to asset endowments, societal and agro-ecological environments. For the landless and very small land owners, sheep and goat provide the main source of income to escape from poverty trap. The results show also some gaps between capital asset and poverty, especially for large herders in the pastoral and agro-pastoral zones of Matruh. The livestock asset generates other sources of wealth that are not taken into account in monetary poverty approach. (Résumé d'auteur

Performance analysis of anaplasma antibody competitive ELISA using the ROC curve for screening of anaplasmosis in camel populations in Egypt

Anaplasmosis is a tick-born and potential zoonotic disease caused by Anaplasma (A.) phagocytophilum, A. ovis, A. platys and A. capra. Anaplasma marginale affecting bovines and camels causing significant economic losses. Camels as an integral part of the socio-economic lifestyle of nomads in semi-arid to arid ecosystems are prone to suffer from subclinical Anaplasma infections. This study aimed to determine the performance and adaptation of commercial competitive Anaplasma ELISA (cELISA) as a tool for screening the seroprevalence of anaplasmosis whitin the camel populations in Egypt. This study was based on the serological investigation of 437 camel sera collected between 2015 and 2016 during a Q fever prevalence study in Egypt using commercially available cELISA for the detection of antibodies specific for Anaplasma in bovine serum. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, an analysis method for optimizing cutoff values in cELISAs, was used to estimate the sensitivity and specificity using 76 true as serological positive (n = 7) and negative (n = 60) for Anaplasma antibodies. ROC curve analysis was done for 7 true positive and 60 true negative bovine samples and 7 true positive and 29 true negative camel samples serum. Real time PCR and/or conventional PCR was applied to confirm Anaplasma spp. specific-DNA in camel serum as an indication of a true positive and true negative for ROC analysis. Chi square analysis was performed to estimate the association between risk factors and anaplasmosis in camels. The cutoff value was determined as 0.42 (p value ≤ 0.001). Data simulation with randomly generated values revealed a cutoff value of 0.417 (p ≤ 0.001) with resulting 58.1% Se and 97.8% Sp. Seven true positive and 29 true negative camel serum samples was confirmed by PCR. Using the estimated cut off, the seroprevalence in the Nile Valley and Delta and the Eastern Desert domain was 47.4% and 46.4%, respectively. The potential risk factors as domains and origin of animals were less significantly associated with the prevalence of anaplasmosis (domains: χ(2) = 41.8, p value ≤ 0.001 and origin: χ(2) = 42.56, p value ≤ 0.001). Raising awareness especially for veterinarians and animal owners will significantly contribute to the best understanding of anaplasmosis in camels in Egypt. Alternative (in silico) validation techniques and preliminary prevalence studies are mandatory towards the control of neglected anaplasmosis in the camel population