THE PROBLEMS of ever-increasing population and increased competition for a variety of stresses, especially in the Nile Delta, Egypt, have induced tremendous pressure on shrinking land resources. Agricultural land in Egypt is limited, so we need to identify and preserve it for agricultural use. This study aims to produce the thematic maps of soil properties assess the land capability by using the Geographic Information System (GIS). To realize this objective, the fieldwork laboratory analysis and satellite data (Landsat ETM+ and ASTER images) were used in a Geographic Information System to outline the landforms and land capability of the studied area. A representative soil samples were collected according to landforms, South Burullus Lake, North of the Nile Delta, Egypt.
Soil taxonomic units were defined as Aquallic Salorthids, Typic Haplosalids, Typic Torrifluvents and Vertic Torrifluvents. Their corresponding area percent were 31.97, 13.48, 1.25 and 53.3 % of the total area, respectively. The dominant main Land forms were flood plain and lacustrine plain (74.7, 25.3 % of the total area).
The thematic layers for CaCO3 and clay content, water table (WT) depth, EC, pH, SAR, OM, and Bulk density (Bd) were created in ArcGIS 10.1 using the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method. These layers were matched together to assess the land capability classes. The obtained land capability classes are I, II, III and IV comprised 6.30, 28.95, 60.57 and 4.18% of the total study area, respectively.