A RECENT GEOMORPHIC AND PEDOLOGICAL STUDIES ON MENOUF PROVINCE SOILS, MENOUFIA GOVERNORATE, EGYPT

Abstract

The current work was performed in 2018 aiming to study the geomorphological and pedological characteristics as well as classification and capability evaluation for soils of Menouf province area, Menoufia governorate, Egypt. The integration of Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques was used to achieve this work. The geomorphic map produced by processing and identifying the Landsat image using RS and GIS technology indicated that, the main landscape unit in the studied area is Alluvial Plain includes nine landforms namely: high terraces (19.4% of the studied area), medium terraces (15.3%), low terraces (24.6%), over flow basin (25.6 %), decantation basin (7.9%) in addition to meandering belt, depression, levee, and island (with small areas).   Twenty-four soil profiles were chosen to represent the different landforms.The land and site features are observed and registered. The soil profiles were dug, morphologically described, and then samples were collected representing the subsequent layers in each profile for integrated physical and chemical analyses. The studied area has almost flat topography with deep soil profiles and freely well drained. These soils have loam to sandy clay loam texture with moderate medium sub angular to angular blocky structure. The analytical data revealed that, the studied soils are moderately alkaline, non-saline and haven’t sodicity effect. The soils are slightly calcareous having very slight gypsum content. Organic matter (OM) is lowand decreases with depth. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) is correlated to the fine fractions and OM contents in these soils. The studied soil profiles haven't any diagnostic horizons, therefore they were classified up to sub great group level under Entisols order mainly as Typic Torriorthents. The land capability evaluation indicated that, about 48% of the studied soils have a Good capability class (C2) and the rest (52%) are considered as a Fair (C3) one.