Watering the Sahara A Sharq El Owainat, Egypt story
Agriculture
Deserts
One of the best test sites, named Egypt-2, was steadily reliable until around the late 1990s. In a vast expanse of Sahara Desert in southern Egypt, center pivot irrigation fields began appearing where there had only been sand just a few years before, changing the reflectance.
Precipitation is extremely rare here, so how do they get water for all these crops?
The region, called Sharq El Owainat, sits atop the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System. Groundwater from the aquifer is pumped through wells to the surface and spread to the field via center-pivot irrigation sprinklers. The region now produces about a third of Egypt’s wheat crop, which is exported by way of the Sharq El Owainat airport.
With all of that land use change happening in the region, Egypt-2 could not continue as a test site.
Location
Dec. 4, 1997, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Feb. 9, 1999, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Mar. 15, 2000, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Feb. 25, 2005, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Nov. 16, 2008, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Jan. 3, 2009, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Feb. 4, 2009, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Nov. 19, 2009, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Jan. 22, 2010, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Jan. 25, 2011, Landsat 5 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Mar. 19, 2013, Landsat 8 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Jan. 20, 2015, Landsat 8 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Feb. 19, 2020, Landsat 8 (path/row 177/44) — center pivot irrigation, Sharq El Owainat, Egypt
Sharq El Owainat, Egypt Additional Imagery & Stories
Earth As Art
The view of this region from Landsat is so fascinating, it’s the subject of two Earth As Art images. These and all Earth As Art images can be download...
Landsat’s Accuracy
The Sharq El Owainat airport is visible on the right side of these images. The runway appears in the 1997 image. Landsat’s accuracy is key to other sy...
Picking Calibration Sites
Engineers use test sites around the world to make sure Landsat imagery is consistent and accurate. These calibration test sites are regions on the Ear...