MONITORING OF LAND DEGRADATION AND SOIL PRODUCTIVITY IN BILQAS DISTRICT, DAKAHLIA GOVERNORATE, EGYPT

Soil degradation is one of the most important obstacles to agricultural development. In the past few years, there has been interest from research agencies and relevant ministries to control soil degradation in the Egyptian lands. This study aims to assess soil degradation , soil productivity and the correlation coefficient between them in Bilqas District, Dakahlia Governorate. To achieve this goal, soil data for the study area were taken from a previous study (2010) and compared with soil data for the study area at the present time. Two main physiographic units dominate the study area i.e. Aeolian plain (Coarse texture) and Flood plain (Moderately fine to fine texture). Depending on these physiographic units, the study area was divided into different types of landforms, sixteen soil profiles were selected to represent these types of landforms. The soil profile locations examined by the current study were the same as the soil profile locations for the previous study.
Soil degradation status was assessed; the results indicate that the most active soil degradation processes are salinity, waterlogging and alkalinity. After evaluating the soil productivity, it was found that its productivity indexes were decreased in most of soil profiles, while it was stable in some profiles and increased in few profiles. There was correlation coefficient between soil productivity and water table level , salinity and alkalinity.