Assessment of Surface Runoff Change Due to Urbanization Growth in Heliopolis Basin

Abstract

Due to continuous increase in population, many new communities have been established in Heliopolis basin, one of the main watersheds located east of Cairo. The main objective of the present study is to highlight and to analyze the change in surface runoff due to the change in land use in Heliopolis basin between years 1984 and 2009 using Landsat satellite data for the years 1984, 2006 and 2009 with the aid of Digital Elevation Models (DEM). The techniques utilized in this investigation involved a supervised classification of the Landsat images. Results showed that urban area located in Heliopolis basin has increased more than 30% during the last 30 years which led to a decrease in infiltration rates and an increase in surface runoff depth.