INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF THE PLEISTOCENE AQUIFER IN BORG EL ARAB, WEST ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Hydrology, Desert Research Center, El-Matareya, EG11753, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The Borg El Arab area is suffering from a remarkable rise in groundwater levels (water logging) that has caused a significant deterioration of agricultural lands. The main objective of the present work is to understand and solve this phenomenon of water logging through the calculation water budget to determine the external hydrological stresses that lead to this problem and to avoid it in the future. Canal seepage was estimated according to the Moritz formula and the equation of FAO/UNESCO. In addition to the application of the of Chatterjee and Ray’s equation to calculate the recharge of aquifer from the rainfall. The evaporation rate was calculated by using the Penman formula. The obtained results the main aquifer in Borg El Arab area consists of consolidated detrital oolitic limestone (Pleistocene) in the coastal areas and Pleistocene clastic sediments in the Abu Mina basin area. The water budget indicates that the total amount of inflow components equals about 54.37 million m3/year, while the total amount of outflow components equals about 22.13 million m3/year. The amount of storage in groundwater equals about 32.24 million m3/year, which means that there is a rise in groundwater levels in the Pleistocene aquifer in the study area. The use of a water budget is an important mean of knowing the external hydrological conditions affecting the aquifer. The results show that the amount of recharged water exceeds the discharged once by 32.24 million m3/year, consequently the increasing of the water level leads the phenomenon of the water logging in the Borg El Arab.

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