The fertile soils of Egypt are of a paramount importance in term of strategic
economical decision. In the last few decades encroachment on the fertile agriculture
soils was tremendously increased by urbanization. Kafr EI-Zaiat city as a big industrial center in EI-Gharbia Governorate was
selected to follow up the urbanization impact during the period from 1985 to 2001. The urbanization areas were estimated in years 1935, 1985 and 2001, by
using details maps of scale 1 :2500 and aerial photographic maps, while the urban
area in 2001 was estimated by the aid of field check. The data showed that, the urban
areas were 364.71, 619.05 and 698.47 fed. In years 1935, 1985 and 2001,
respectively, The annual increasing rate was equivalent to 5.09 fed.yr" during 1935
up to 1985 and 21.8 fed.yr" during 1985 to 2001. The study cleared up that, increasing of population percent was 34.6% less than
the increasing of urbanization percent. This was attributed to the higher input of real
estate investment compared with that of agricultural investment. The study elucidated that, the loss of the geographical area was 349.4 fed. and
this means 698.8 fed. of productive area. Estimation of annual agricultural production
return of such area ranged from 1,520,975 to 4,330,969 LE. Construction of new cities on the desert lands, execution of family planning
programs, aggravation of encroachment punishment besides intensifying of
urbanization are the suggested solutions to safeguard against urban encroachment
and losing fertile soil.