El-Sayed Ewis Omran

Early sensing of peanut leaf spot using spectroscopy and thermal imaging

ABSTRACT Early and late leaf spot are the most devastating, important fungal foliar diseases affecting peanut. The economic loss caused by peanut diseases justifies the necessity to develop more reliable detection methods. Point and image spectroscopy and thermal imaging were used in this study for the early detection of peanut leaf spot. The spectral reflectance factors differ significantly according to the health condition. The leaves of the healthy peanut showed a decreasing reflection in 1015 nm, whereas the heavily diseased leaves showed an increasing reflection. At the thermal infrared range, affected plants show a higher temperature than healthy ones. A presymptomatic decrease in leaf temperature using thermal imagery was found about 1.3°C lower than the healthy leaves. However, the diseased plant’s temperature was 2.2°C higher than that of the healthy one. The temperature difference allowed the discrimination between the infected and healthy leaves before the appearance of visible necrosis on leaves. Two simple indices, early leaf spot index (ELSI) and late leaf spot index (LLSI), were developed to allow early prediction of the peanut disease severity. The disease severity estimation using ELSI and LLSI has an overall accuracy of 78% and 89%, respectively. This demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed indices to estimate the peanut disease.

Will the Traditional Agriculture Pass into Oblivion? Adaptive Remote Sensing Approach in Support of Precision Agriculture

Is it a time for replacing the traditional agricultural system by adaptive remote sensing (RS)? Yes, of course it is. This chapter has focused on developing four adaptive models to predict and monitor soil-plant properties using RS. First, an image and point spectroscopic model to replace the current soil chemical analysis methods, which are slow, complicated, or inaccurat was developed. Spectroscopy has opened a new era in which outdated conventional soil analyses are being left behind. Spectroscopy can be utilized to precisely predict some soil (e.g. salinity, gypsum, heavy metals) properties, making it an important tool in precision farming.

Land and Groundwater Resources in the Egypt’s Nile Valley, Delta, and Its Fringes

The current Egyptian situation is framed by land and water scarcity, which are under severe pressure. The Nile Delta is one of the most densely populated deltas in the world. Soil and water resources are at the center of sustainable development and are critical for socio-economic development.

Land and Groundwater Assessment for Agricultural Development in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Management of land and water resources in arid regions is vital and opens the way for new agricultural activities and growth of residential communities. The Sinai Peninsula suffers from water scarcity, limiting these types of development in a substantial way. This chapter seeks to evaluate the conventional land and water resources of Sinai, Egypt, using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques. The future of land reclamation in Sinai will depend largely on its groundwater potential.

Adaptive Management Zones of Egyptian Coastal Lakes

Lakes are one of the most important characteristics of Egypt’s coastal areas. However, deteriorating condition of these lakes due to industrialization, land reclamation, agricultural practices, overfishing, bird hunting, and coastal erosion is serious. Many challenges are faced by these lakes, some of which are the most polluted lakes in Egypt where they receive large quantities of agricultural, industrial, and municipal wastes through several drains and from factories around them. In addition, Egypt’s Mediterranean coast and the Nile Delta have been identified highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Adaptive management is the best approach for addressing this type of complex problem. The main objective of this chapter is to classify Egypt’s lakes and depressions and to evaluate the land resources status of Egypt’s coastal lakes. Also, the challenges facing the sustainable development of these lakes were identified. Adaptive management approach would facilitate the investigation and classification of Egypt’s lakes and depressions.

Will the Conventional Soil-Plant Analysis Pass into Oblivion? Rapid and Low-Cost Determination Using Spectroscopy

ABSTRACT Is it time for replacing the traditional soil-plant analysis methods by spectroscopy? Traditional analytical methods are subject to significant sources of errors that commonly result in compromise of soil characteristics and gross underestimation of chemical concentrations in soil-plant for a wide range of analyses. Given the magnitude of the decisions that are made based on these data, the technical and economic impacts of using traditional methods can be significant. Therefore, it is now time for soil-plant spectroscopy to enter an operational phase. Spectroscopy has opened a new era in which traditional analyses are being left behind. Spectroscopy can be used to accurately predict certain soil and plant properties, making it a valuable tool in precision farming. Soil spectra contain much information relevant to soil-plant properties. Multivariate regressions of spectra can accurately predict several soil properties. Spectroscopy requires only a few seconds to analyze a soil sample, but the relevant information needs to be mathematically extracted from the spectra so that it can be correlated with soil properties. Therefore, the successful application of spectroscopy to quantify and evaluate the relationships between soil reflectance and soil properties depends largely on the development of accurate and robust calibration models. These procedures appear to be sufficiently accurate and precise to enable their use in soil and plant analysis. There are many advantages to using this technique.

Update, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Conventional Water Resources and Agriculture in Egypt

Water resources in Egypt are limited. The Nile River is the main water resource. Agriculture is the main water consumer of water resources. It consumes about 80–85% of all available water resources. The rapid growth of the population and the expected impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture threaten current and future food security in Egypt. Policymakers and expertise give important attention to these challenges where so many efforts were done long time ago (and still doing) to enhance delivery and on-farm water use efficiencies. Egyptian policymakers pay special attention on the agricultural sector for its importance in ensuring food security to the rapidly growing population through the vital activities. These activities include (but not limited to) better utilization of agricultural resources, using drainage water reuse, reusing of treated wastewater, improving water use efficiency, managing groundwater resources, and developing a horizontal expansion area through reclaiming new lands. In addition, many irrigation improvement projects were conducted to increase water productivity. This chapter focuses on conventional water resources and sustainability of agricultural environment in Egypt that was documented during the book project. This chapter summarizes the critical conventional water resource challenges (in terms of conclusions and recommendations) of the existing main agri-food system and offering perceptions resulting from the cases in the volume. In addition, certain update and findings from a few recently published research work related to the conventional water resources covered themes are presented.

Update, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Versus Aswan High Dam: A View from Egypt

This chapter summarizes the key information and findings for the book Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam versus Aswan High Dam: A View from Egypt. Also, the major conclusions and recommendations are provided. Some findings from a few recently published research work related to the covered themes as an update for the information covered in the book are reviewed and presented. Also, the main current challenges facing Egypt due to the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) due to the probable improper operation without cooperation with Egypt and Sudan are provided. The chapter is meant to provide a brief synopsis of some of the issues that have been identified in the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) including how these will impact the existing Aswan High Dam (AHD) and Egypt’s water resources and the society as well. Varieties of negative and positive impacts of both GERD and AHD are summarized. Modeling analysis of these impacts into the future is also characterized and assessed. For instance, it has been shown that, depending on its initial impoundment plan and operational policy, GERD can have significant impacts on the downstream, for which the associated costs have not been taken into consideration. In particular, operating GERD solely for hydropower energy maximization involves extremely high risks for the downstream, particularly Egypt which depends almost on the water coming from the Nile. Based on the information, investigation, analysis, findings, and writings throughout this book, a set of conclusions and recommendations are presented.

Update, Conclusions, and Recommendations for Sustainability of the Agricultural Environment in Egypt: The Soil–Water–Food Nexus

This chapter casts light on the main conclusions and recommendations of the chapters presented in this volume. In addition, it discusses some findings from a few recently published research works related to the soil–water–food nexus. Therefore, this chapter contains information on water scarcity in Egypt, soil toxicology, heavy metal contamination, sustainable agriculture, geostatistics and proximal soil sensing in agricultural management, the role of intercropping systems in sustainable crop production, rice production, bioactive compounds in soybeans, and plant biotechnology. In addition, a set of recommendations for future research work is provided to direct future research toward sustainability, which is the main subject of strategic importance under Egyptian circumstances.

Hydrological Simulation of a Rainfed Agricultural Watershed Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)

The hydrology component of the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) watershed model was evaluated in the El-Dabaa and El-Alamian watershed of Egypt; using the runoff measured at the outlet of the watershed. At present, prediction of stream flow simulation in data-sparse basins of the northwestern coast of Egypt is a challenging task due to the absence of reliable ground-based rainfall information, while satellite-based rainfall estimates are immensely useful to improve our understanding of spatio-temporal variation of rainfall, particularly for data-sparse basins. The main objective of this chapter was to test the performance and feasibility of the SWAT model and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) for prediction of runoff in the watershed with application to a study area in the Northwestern coastal zone of Egypt.