Center for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe

This paper describes the application of GIS - RS techniqt es to detect urban growth of Nasr city and surroundings ( Cairo , Egypt ) from 1945 to 1993 For this work , TM multi-spectral data ( 30 m resolution ) from 1993, KVR-1000 image ( 5m resolution) from 1991 , and SPOT image ( 20 rn resolution ) from 1986 were used ; this is in addition to topographic 'naps with scale of 1:25,000 from 1945 and 1991. Multi-source data is used to highlight and map urban changes in Nasr city and surroundings as an area of active urban development in Cairo city . The results can be used by local government authorities to understand development trends and for future planning. A GIS model was designed to handle the designed data base . This prototype GIS integrates remote sensing data with other data, mostly from maps. The attribut data were obtained from base maps and satellite data. High resolution satellite images , and base maps with scale 1:25,000 offered enough details to allow identificatirn of all features of level 2 and level classification. Classification until leveJ4 an 5 for some categories specially residential area can be realized. In this paper, urban change detection through the year 1945 to 1993 was highlighted . Also, a classification scheme was designed to identify land use categories in the study area in 1993 where the area for all features are presented .