Monitoring, Predicting and Quantifying Soil Alkalinity, Sodicity and Salinity in Blue Nile State, Sudan, Using Soil Techniques, Remote Sensing and GIS Analysis; Case Study: Blue Nile River

Abstract

This study focused on the assessment of land degradation on a transect of 20 km along the Blue Nile River (10 km at each side of the river) within the Blue Nile state, Blue Nile State, Sudan. Through mapping and monitoring the changes that occurred in the soil properties, due to Water Erosion, Vegetations degradation, mismanagement in addition to the Human activities and Climatic change The study attempted also to update some information in the study area such as chemical properties using different methods of data transformation and analysis such as: Soil analysis technique, GIS and remote sensing analysis. The research was based on the data and information deduced and extracted from soil survey data, soil analysis, and remote sensed data, in addition to fieldwork verification and other sources. The study covered an area about 346483.43 ha. Soil analysis and data compilation from other sources showed that the soil of the study area witnessed remarkable changes during the study Period (1990 – 2015). The degradations affected the Soil and Vegetations covers of the study area in both side around the Blue Nile River. The analysis indicated that soil degradation was taken place in the study area specially the top west and south east parts of the area which was affected by some buckets of salinity, northern part shown moderate level of acidity while the Part from the south East and South west area shown moderate level of Alkalinity. Assessment and evaluation of the soil of the study area in respect to soil texture revealed that 15% of the total area received some Sand deposits in the study area which it considered the beginning or indicator of soil degradation in the south west and northern part of the study area, while the SAR analysis indicated that all the soils of the study area fell within none sodic class. According to framework of the land suitability (FAO, 1976) revealed that the soil of the study area is moderately suitable (S2) for agriculture.