Groundwater Management for Sustainable Development Plans for the Western Nile Delta

Egypt is considered an arid country and the primary water resource is the River Nile. The limited availability of renewable freshwater for agriculture and urban development is a major constraint. The role of groundwater is steadily increasing and will cover 20% of the total water supply in the coming decades especially in the reclaimed areas of the Western Nile Delta. Serious environmental problems are emerging in the groundwater aquifer in Western Nile Delta such as waterlogging, soil salinity, and the risk of saline water intrusion to the north aquifer. An efficient integrated and sustainable management plan for groundwater resources is needed to avoid the deterioration of the groundwater aquifer in Western Nile Delta. In this chapter, a brief description of the groundwater aquifer in Western Nile Delta and a review of previous studies on groundwater hydrology were presented. GIS and MODFLOW models were integrated to simulate the groundwater flow in the studied Quaternary aquifer. The developed model was calibrated for steady-state and transient conditions for groundwater heads till 2002. The groundwater potentiality was evaluated, and different management scenarios were analyzed for groundwater prediction. The results of the current situation of groundwater showed that groundwater aquifer in Western Nile Delta is susceptible to significant water table reduction especially in the unconfined parts for the case of overstress discharge. The net aquifer recharge was increased for the case of reducing the surface water inflow while increasing the annual abstraction and improving the irrigation system. The annual aquifer potentiality was increased by the construction of a new canal to feed the aquifer towards the northwest direction. Therefore, efficient integrated and sustainable management of groundwater resources relies on a comprehensive database that represents the characteristics of the aquifer and modeling software to achieve the impacts of decision alternatives.