This work falls within the cooperation program initiated between GTZ and the Syrian Government for the conservation of agricultural lands and water resources in Syria. The first objective is developing a land use plan for Damascus region whereby lands, which are mostly favourable for agricultural use and for recharging the water tables, get protected from urbanization and from polluting activities. The second objective is developing a work methodology that can be conveyed to Syrian planners allowing them to develop land use plans for the entire country.
The land use plans should serve as a basis for the development of a general law for land conservation in Syria, as agreed upon between GTZ and the Syrian government. Even though the juridical aspect is not into our mandate, it should be taken into consideration, as for example when integrating the political and administrative decision making into our methodology for the classification of lands. The models for territorial developments should be flexible enough to allow adaptation to local authorities and transposition in different Syrian regions.
In the Middle East, remote sensing is widespread and the planners understand perfectly the data processing techniques. However, they often neglect the human factor (demography, economy, social structures…) and used the modeling based on satellite images. It is true that demographic or economic statistics are difficult to obtain and are not very reliable, however, our contribution, as researchers in human geography, is to merge quantitative and qualitative human data with its activities based on satellite images. As such, we have created a GIS, integrating population censuses and economic statistics on the land use map.

Physical study on Damascus

Human Study on Damascus

Global study on Damascus (arabic)