Abstract

Northern coastal zone of Egypt possesses a complex ecosystem that is wealthy of natural resources attracting nearly 45% of the Egyptian population to live within few kilometers buffer from the coastline. It extends for nearly 1100 Km from Rafah city in the Far East to El Saloum city in the far west. It occupied by large cities, small towns and villages with dense population, industrial states, and large marine harbors, fish farming activities and rural and agriculture in some areas. Egypt vision 2030 is strongly paying attention to the development of the northern coastal zone with various projects such as the nuclear power station, leisure and coastal touristic compounds, infrastructures, harbors, agriculture, etc. Such social and economic development plans are playing major roles in the country’s sustainable development contributing to the national GDP. This, indeed, requires understanding of the hazards that might obstacle such development plans including climate changes and natural hazards. Unfortunately, Mediterranean region is the most vulnerable region of the globe under the threat of climate changes, and Egypt is one the most vulnerable countries to the impact of climate changes. The changing pattern of temperature and rainfall would create pressure and negative impact on the social and economic development of this region. It becomes a fact that the global temperature will increase by the 2100. Hence, understanding the impact of such rise of temperature on the resources and requirements is needed. This will influence the water needs and consumption, the energy requirements, the ecosystem and livings. Such changes require governance readiness with plans and scenarios for adaptation, resilience and mitigation. The objective of this proposal is to develop an integrated platform for time series analysis of earth observation data and other ancillary data to understand the impact of the climate changes on the northern coastal zone of Egypt. It will provide 1) regular updated maps of the scenarios of climate changes such as sea level rise and coastal erosion on social and development. 2) regular and updated maps on the social and economic responses to the changing pattern of temperature due to climate changes . 3) scenarios of resilience and mitigation of impact of climate change; and 4) regular and updated maps of the consequence’s hazards (e.g., salt water intrusion, land subsidence) on the economic development. The platform will support all levels from decision and policy makers; professionals, practitioners and public beneficiaries and stakeholders.