agronomy Article On the Use of Multivariate Analysis and Land Evaluation for Potential Agricultural Development of the Northwestern Coast of Egypt Mohamed El Sayed Said 1,*, Abdelraouf. M. Ali 1,2 , Maurizio Borin 3,* , Sameh Kotb Abd-Elmabod 4 , Ali A. Aldosari 5 , Mohamed M. N. Khalil 6 and Mohamed K. Abdel-Fattah 6 1 National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS), Cairo 11843, Egypt;
[email protected] 2 Agrarian-Technological Institute of the Peoples Friendship University of Russia, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya 6, 117198 Moscow, Russia 3 Department of Agronomy, Food, Natural Resources, Animals and Environment—DAFNAE, University of Padua, Agripolis Campus, Viale dell’ Università 16, 35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy, Veneto 4 Soils & Water Use Department, Agricultural and Biological Research Division, National Research Centre, Cairo 12622, Egypt;
[email protected] 5 Geography Department, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia;
[email protected] 6 Soil Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, ZagazigUniversity, Zagazig 44519, Egypt;
[email protected] (M.M.N.K.);
[email protected] (M.K.A.-F.) * Correspondence:
[email protected] (M.E.S.S.);
[email protected] (M.B.); Tel.: +20-10-6144-5686 (M.E.S.S.) Received: 20 July 2020; Accepted: 21 August 2020; Published: 3 September 2020 Abstract: The development of the agricultural sector is considered the backbone of sustainable development in Egypt. While the developing countries of the world face many challenges regarding food security due to rapid population growth and limited agricultural resources, this study aimed to assess the soils of Sidi Barrani and Salloum using multivariate analysis to determine the land capability and crop suitability for potential alternative crop uses, based on using principal component analysis (PCA), agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis (AHC) and the Almagra model of MicroLEIS.