TITLE:
Groundwater Management at West El-Minia Desert Area, Egypt Using Numerical Modeling
AUTHORS:
Ahmed A. Abdel Moneim, José Paulino Fernández-Álvarez, Elsayed M. Abu El Ella, Ahmed M. Masoud
KEYWORDS:
Groundwater Flow Model, El-Minia, Groundwater Management, Quaternary Aquifer
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.4 No.7,
July
25,
2016
ABSTRACT: Water
shortage is the main problem facing any development in Egypt especially in the
desert lands. River Nile is considered the main source of water in Egypt but
its water covers only the area of flood plain where its tributaries do not
reach to the desert. The desert fringes, west of El-Minia governorate, Egypt,
are areas of natural expansion for agricultural, industrial, and civil
activities. This implies an increasing demand for groundwater. A numerical
groundwater model is one of the main tools used for assessment of the resource
potential and prediction of future impact under different circumstances and
stresses. In this paper, a transient groundwater flow model in the desert
district west of El-Minia, Egypt, was developed. The conceptual model was built
by analyzing the hydrogeological data and previous work. Steady state model of
year 1990 was used to investigate and calibrate the parameters such as
hydraulic conductivities, recharge and conductance of the surface water
streams. The storage coefficients are calibrated by the transient model based
on the available data observed from 1990 to 2013, which provides insights to
understand the behavior of groundwater system in Quaternary Aquifer and to
predict spatial-temporal distributions of groundwater levels and groundwater
flow in responding to extraction of water. The calibrated transient model will
be used to predict the impacts of desert development schemes and water
resources management schemes on groundwater in the study area.