This research project is included within the framework of the Seventh Five-Year Plan (2012 – 2017) of NARSS, under the national program to recruit remote sensing in the field of Housing and Development (assessment of urban corridors and high resolution imaging using the hyperspectral camera to selected areas of the Nile Delta).

The Egyptian government is showing a great interest to the lateral population extension in the deserts. Accordingly, a number of roads are constructed. Sohag - Safaga highway in the Eastern Desert is an example of such roads.

The detrimental consequences of swelling soils are most apparent in arid and semi – arid localities because the water content of the soil near the surface is normally kept low by evaporation. Sedimentary clays are mixtures of illite, kaolinite, with some montmorillonite. There are various soil types liable to swell; shale, mudstone, siltstone, marl. The large volume changes can cause extensive damages to civil engineering infrastructures; roads, airport pavements, pipelines, shallow foundations. Foundations over swelling soils may cause damages to the buildings over which they are constructed. A number of localities in Egypt are famous by the presence of swelling soils such as; Nasr – City, Cairo – Suez Road, El – Fayum, Kom Ombo, Aswan, New Valley and El - Sadat City. The area east of Sohag (the study area) suffers from the presence of Pliocene clay that is characterized by its swelling nature

Although using satellite imagery, a certain proportion of soil coverage response would be masked (i.e. in or near urban areas, or under thick and dense vegetation conditions); this would open the door for low – cost, large – scale mapping of clay mineralogy leading to swelling of soil. ASTER satellite imageries are used to map the different clay minerals and compare between the different sensors accuracy in locating these clay minerals based on some field data (ASD Spectrometer).

Development of mineral exploration methods will be mainly based on remote sensing hyperspectral data to detect zones of promising mineralization, and to differentiate between the different clay minerals. The results of these processing methods will be tested by field checks and the application of some relevant geophysical methods on promising sites.

The study of natural hazards will involve the use of suitable modeling software, with field check, to study and evaluate the sites exposed to dangerous slopes as obvious on Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and flash flood analysis will be investigated by studying drainage basins and meteorological satellite data.