One of the largest and most Important projects in Egypt is Tushk Project
that lies in the western side or Nasser lake .Upper Egypt .The project area covers
about 1.5 million feddans, of which about 500,000 (eddans will be selected (or
agricultural ~ .• es. The selected area wi(! be irrigated (rom two sources of waler
(ground& fk. Jded waler). The ground water will be the main water resource for
irrigat!"~ followed by ,the Nile water during the high flooding seaaons. Se'Jeral
attempts were carried out to select the suilable areas for agricultural purposes using
the conventional methods. Due to the high cost and time consuming of th ground
5uNey in such an extremely arid land, remote sensing and Geographic 1M rmation
System (GIS) have to be used for landuse planning in Tushka area. Multi-sensors
remotely sensing techniques were applied to map the land resources of the project
area. landsat thematiC mapper collaborated with Spot panchromatic Image~es were
analyzed to define Ihe different mappiog units of the area. Data merging te9hniques
were performed 10 identify the physiographic units of the studied area accurately.
Elghleen pt"lysiographic units have been recognized t.e. peniplains, footslopes, alkali
flats, mesas and buttes ,ridges, chain of barcharts ,hills, hilly land ,alluvial fans, plains
covered wflh desert pavement, dry valleys, escarpment, decantalion basins. plateau,
inclined granitic casement, clusters of basalt and pediment. Physiographic units were
integrated with Ihe other parameters for identifying the soil type. Soil pr ductivily
ctassification was applied to evaluate the potentialities of land reso rces ror
agriculture. SOil productivity classes range between grade III and VI. On e other
hand, the collected surface and ground wa\ef samples were analyzed and classified
as C1-S1 for Ihe surface water which is suitable for most crops and C3·S1 for the
ground water samples which is suitable for salt tolerant crops.