Project AHLAN

26/03/2026

Follow the movement of sand dunes across the landscape. They impact the visibility and preservation of archaeological sites and can also be a threat to modern communities and their livelihoods.

Modelled using Esri’s Landsat Explorer and processed data from NASA's freely available Landsat archive.

Explore and begin to unlock the wealth of information provided by Landsat through an intuitive user experience leveraging a variety of ArcGIS capabilities.

25/03/2026

40 years of landscape change in the Dongola Reach! Project AHLAN is using publicly available remote sensing data to understand how agricultural development and sand dune movement impacts local ecologies, ancient sites, aquifers and modern communities alike. A change detection analysis based on NASA Landsat images from February 1985 and January 2025 indicates that areas of agricultural activity alone increased by nearly 200 km2.
You can use cool tools like ESRI’s Landsat Explorer and NASA’s freely available Landsat archive to explore images from over 40 years of human and environmental processes that have transformed landscapes all over the world!
Thanks to NASA & U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for collecting and making this information available for free, for everyone.
Read more: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/projectahlan/newsevents/40yearsoflandscapechangeinthedongolareach.html

24/11/2025

Check out how our project area has changed since 1969! 🔗 https://corona.cast.uark.edu/atlas =12¢er=3399976,2155163

The CAST Corona Atlas project provides free public access to georeferenced historical spy-satellite images from all over the world. This is an incredibly important resource for archaeologists and anyone interested in how landscapes have changed since the 1960s.

The images hosted by CAST come from the U.S. Geological Survey — and you can find many more through their EarthExplorer interface and main website:
🔗 USGS EarthExplorer: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
🔗 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): https://www.usgs.gov/

02/11/2025

Check out the project page!

AHLAN is a multidisciplinary landscape research project exploring how communities along the Nile near modern-day Dongola, Sudan, have adapted land use and food security strategies since the African Humid Period. Combining archival research, remote sensing, and community participation, the project do...

29/10/2025

08/10/2025

Today we launched AHLAN, investigating how communities along the Nile near Dongola have adapted land use and food security strategies over the past 5,000 years — and how this knowledge can support heritage protection and sustainable futures. Our team includes:
Chris Sevara – Newcastle University (lead);
Ahmed El-Hassan (Sokhari) - National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, Sudan;
Ahmed Mahmoud – University of Leicester;
Louise Rayne – Newcastle University;
Sam Turner – Newcastle University;
Elisabeth Niklasson – University of Aberdeen.

07/07/2025

See some of the earlier research leading up to the project:https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/296697/25071C77-2402-4EEE-96F6-32B6AF420B92.pdf

04/07/2025

On this page you can follow our research in the project 'Adaptations in Human Landscapes Along the Nile' (AHLAN, an AHRC funded project led by Newcastle University).