Ahmed El Mahmoudi

The agricultural and research station of King Faisal University, KSA is a key field of scientific studies conducted by faculty members and graduates. Soil salinity and the existence of a hardpan layer are considered to be dominant problems, which affect the agricultural activities in this agricultural research station. Electromagnetic induction & electrical resistivity tomography implemented in this study to contribute to these problems. The EM38-MK2 conductivity meter, is inexpensive, rapid and effective means for the mapping of soil salinity. The EM38-MK2, when used in vertical mode can measure the electrical conductivity (EC) at depths of 75 and 150 cm at about 700 sites along the study area. About 157 soil samples using the hand auger were collected at depth intervals of 10-20 cm and 30-40 cm for the same site. The electrical conductivity for the collected soil samples were measured at the lab to correlate with the EM38-Mk2 data. In addition, 2-D electrical tomography using SuperSting R8/IP 8 channel multi-electrode resistivity and IP imaging system with 112 electrodes at 3 meter spacing implemented along selected profiles were used to map the hardpan layer. Soil pits were excavated to help with the interpretation of the resistivity tomograms and to know the nature of such layer. The collected EC using the data of the EM38-MK2 were processed & analyzed and two salinity maps constructed at 75 & 15cm. In addition, two salinity maps were constructed from the EC data of the collected soil samples at depth intervals of 10-20 cm and 30-40 cm. Both salinity maps of EM38 correlate well with the salinity maps of lab measurements. The salinity variation was found to change laterally and vertically due to changes in soil type/texture and soil moisture. Analysis and interpretation of the 2-D resistively data along with soil pits provided information on the geometry of the hardpan in this area of study. This hardpan layer is a shale layer with low resistivity zone on 2-D tomograms. The existence of the hardpan layer at shallow depths was found to have its impact of high salinity areas.

Nowadays, the northwestern side of the Gulf of Suez attains great attention from the governmental development and assessment projects. This area comprises a lot of economical industrial projects and commercial foundations. The sustainable development of these projects needs essentially the presence and continuity of water resources. The development of the groundwater resources represents the main target in this area. Therefore, the present paper deals with evaluation of the groundwater potentiality using surface and subsurface geophysical and geological investigation tools carried out on the western side of the Gulf of Suez. The main aspects of the study included reviewing the geological and structural setting of the area; a magnetic survey to infer the basement depth and structure that may affect the aquifers in the area; Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) survey to delineate aquifers; Wire line logging analysis of some available data to define the petrophysical properties relevant...

It is shown that DC resistivity provides vital information about subsurface conditions underneath the area of study. An area of 250 km2 is covered for Kafr Saqr sheet, Sharqiya Governorate, “Survey of Egypt” topographic maps, 1:25,000 series, sheet No. 89l660 (Kafr Saqr). This area is the subject of detailed Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) to explore its shallow subsurface conditions. In this respect a total of about 83 VES have been conducted along five profiles extending almost E-W, perpendicular to the main drainage - irrigation system in the area of investigation. The ABEM SAS 300 Terrameter is used in this DC resistivity survey with maximum spread length (AB) = 400 m. The sounding data analysis are interpreted using two modern techniques which provide the n-layers (step-function) model for each sounding curve (Zohdy and Bisdorf , 1989) and the equivalent layering (Meju, 1992 & 1995). Due to the fact that the geoelectric interpretation is complicated by the inhomogeneous cha...

Classical archaeological methods require an enormous expenditure of human energy., also possible destruction which sometimes occurs in the course of trial trenches excavations. Sophisticated geophysical methods, especially the geoelectric methods, are essential tools for subsurface investigations, assisting not only in the improvement of the land-planning, but also in making archaeological maps of interested terrain. The reliability and effectiveness of these geophysical tools has markedly increased because of the high tech, high sensitivity instruments and interpretation schemes. The applications of such modern prospecting techniques to archaeology has produced an enormous mass of data stored either on film, on paper or in computer readable (digital) form which requires transformation to something which can be used by the archaeologist in his struggle with the planning authorities and the forces of destruction. Archaeologists often call ground geophysical methods "archaeologic...

Today, Shallow geophysical techniques are considered as one of the most accurate and cost effective methods used in engineering, archaeological, and environmental investigations. This achievement is related to the expanding the interpretative skills of the geophysicists and the increasing the acquaintance of the engineers and geologists with its basic geophysical principles. The dc resistivity methods , in particular, of geophysical exploration are popular and proved to be successful and have many implications in the fields of archaeology, environment and hydrogeolgy. In this study, the Tell Timai locality and the environs of Tell Timai and Tell el-Rub’a, archaeological sites, were a subject of detailed of geoelectric resistivity investigations. These two mounds are several hundred meters apart, north-west of the modern town of el-Simbellawein, in the central delta (Fig. 1). The northern Tell el-Rub’a and the southern Tell Timai. Such these sites represent chapters of the Egyptian h...

Isolated sandy hills (arabic: gezira) are a remarkable feature in the eastern Nile Delta. These sandy hills still rise above the alluvium today in the midst of the green, arable land. They are known as Turtle-backs and are considered as one of the salient geomorphic unit in the Nile Delta. This paper aims to shed lights on the natural radioactivity for this remarkable geomorphic feature. In this respect, twenty five representative samples have been collected from different localities of these sandy hills. Concentrations of radionuclides in these samples have been measured using gamma-ray spectroscopy system. The activity concentrations for 232Th series and 238U series together with that of 40K were expressed in (Bq/kg) of dry weight. Also the content in (ppm) of these radionuclides were given. The result of this study reveals that , for most of the sandy samples, 40K concentrations are much higher than that of both 238U and 232Th. The highest values of 238U, 232Th and 40K activity c...

The water resources in the new communities located at the South Eastern part of the Nile Delta, Egypt include groundwater, surface water and drainage water in canals and oxidation ponds. Chemical analyses of 190 samples from various sources have been performed. Based on the results, the available water resources were classified into different categories. The evaluation of the water quality was based on the content of major cations, anions and total dissolved salts. The Quaternary aquifer in the western part contains water of drinking quality. In the northern and eastern parts of the same aquifer, the groundwater is unsuitable for drinking or domestic uses. The water quality in the Oligocene and Miocene aquifers is poor. The quality of the surface water in canals is suitable for all peruses including drinking. Drainage water in drains and oxidation ponds is of very low quality and should not be reused. This is essentially true for water in the oxidation ponds

In the last few decades, the United Arab Emirates has witnessed a remarkable development in the various aspects of life. Such fast development imposes a tremendous pressure on natural resources including water. Despite the severe shortage in the natural water resources, the per capita water consumption in the UAE is among the highest rates of the world. UAE depends on conventional and non-conventional water resources to meet the ever-increasing water demands. Groundwater is one of the most important conventional water resources in UAE, in general, and Al Ain area, in particular. The focus area of this paper is Al Jaww Plain. It lies in the eastern part of Al Ain city and is bounded by Oman Mountains range in the east and Jabal Hafit in the west. It represents one of the main plains at Al Ain and occupies an area of about 500 km2. This study is devoted to the investigation of the water potentiality and quality at Al Jaww Plain. It defines the hydrogelogical parameters of Al Jaww Plai...

Groundwater constitutes an important water resource in United Arab Emirates. Groundwater has been overexploited to meet the increasing water demands. Despite the wide expansion in the construction of desalination plants in the different Emirates, the groundwater resources still contribute the largest share in the water budget of the country. Quaternary aquifer is the main source for groundwater in Al Ain area, where the area of study is located. Wadi Muraykhat and Wadi Sa’a are of the main tributaries crossing east of Al Jaww Plain, Al Ain area, UAE. These wadies originate their water from Oman Mountains range and form the catchment and feeding area of the water resources. From the hydrogeological point of view, the subsurface investigation of these wadies is very important for better understanding of the Quaternary aquifer system, water flow, water quality and management of water pumping. Two-Dimensional Electrical Resistivity Imaging (2-D ERI) survey has been implemented. Thirteen...

The United Arab Emirates is located in an arid region where surface water is generally absent and groundwater is mostly non-renewable. Rainfall is scarce and infrequent. Over-exploitation of groundwater resources, mostly to meet the irrigation demands has already affected the aquifer's productivity both quantitatively and qualitatively. Despite the scarcity of the natural water resources, the per capita consumption rate in the UAE is among the highest rates in the world. The country relies on non-conventional water resources, including desalinated water and treated waste water. On the other hand, many dams have been constructed recently across the main wadis to harvest the surface water and recharge the depleted aquifers. The treated wastewater is used for developing green areas along the highways of the main cities. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the landforms and water resources in the UAE. It provides a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the available w...

There is a growing concern in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to exploit water resources of acceptable quality to meet demands in domestic, industrial, and agricultural sectors. The agricultural water need constitutes approximately 85% of the total demand. Various alternative supplies to meet these demands are surface water, renewable groundwater resources, treated wastewater, desalinated water, and non-renewable groundwater. Al Hassa Oasis is one of the main and old agricultural centers in Saudi Arabia. An irrigation network of 1, 450 Km of concrete canals and drainage network were put into operation in 1971. The project delivers 328 million m3 of spring water for about 22, 000 farms. The excess drainage water is collected by earthen drainage network and discharged into two evaporation lakes which are Al Asfar and Al Uyoun. Such evaporation lakes (Wet lands) are important link between water and land ecosystems. They provide habitats and refuges for wildlife, flood protection and contri...

Direct Current (DC) resistivity techniques of geophysical exploration are popular and proved to be successful and have many implications in the fields of engineering, geoenvironment and hydrogeology. In this paper, the electric resistivity technique proved to be successful method for mapping of Quaternary aquifer conditions in the East Nile Delta, Egypt and in Wadi Ham, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The application of this technique gave excellent information, about the aquifers lithology, their thicknesses, salinity, contamination and other valuable information. In the Eastern Nile Delta area, a detailed Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) were implemented to explore the Quaternary aquifer subsurface conditions at this area. While at Wadi Ham, UAE, Two Dimensional (2-D) earth resistivity imaging survey was conducted to delineate the seawater intrusion for this coastal aquifer. The interpretation of the acquired resistivity data with aid of the available borehole information at both a...

Land cover includes not only surface water bodies, vegetation, sand dunes, urbanization and others, but also includes the subsurface garments beneath the few tens of meters below the ground surface. At these shallow depths, the shallow geologic conditions react in all directions with the surface land cover according to the regional or local area activities. Therefore, detailed shallow penetration geophysical methods such as electric resistivity and seismic refraction techniques guided with few drill hole data, can contribute much to the detection of the shallow subsurface geologic condition which are in mutual interaction with the land use in the regional or local area. In the Nile Delta of Egypt, the geologic land cover consists of the Holocene Delta clay/silt cap and the underlying Middle Pleistocene sands. These two Quaternary geologic formations represent the most important land resource in this region, as it includes the fertile agricultural lands and the underlying semiconfine...

The Tell Timai mound is located to north-west of the modern town of El-Simbellawein east of the Nile Delta. It is about seven Kilometres in perimeter and is situated about one-half Kilometre south of the archaeological site of Tell El Rub’a (Mendes). Tell Timai is the modern name of an old site in the eastern Delta which was called the new land. Heroduts (425 B.C) attests the existence of a Thmuite Nome. By the second century A.D., when it appears in administrative documents, it seems to have definitely supplanted Mendes (the present Tell el-Rub’a) as capital of the Nome. At the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century A.D., it became an Episcopal see. For some centuries it maintained its position as one of the most important towns in Egypt. There are several references to Thmuis as an administrative division of Egypt in the first centuries of Islam. However, the town was soon to fall into almost total obscurity. Its decline began in the ninth century A.D. Surface rui...

The Abydos locality is a famous archaeological site southwest of Balyana town, Sohage Governorate, Upper Egypt. It is located at the western boundary of the agricultural land of the Nile Valley and represents one of the most important holly burial grounds for kings and high court dignitaries in ancient Egypt, and also as a pilgrimage site for the religious Pharaohs for long time. The locality is liable to groundwater hazards on the archaeological burials due to effect of the nearby agricultural and irrigation activities. Therefore, the present paper is aimed to throw more light on the hydrogeological conditions of this area through geoelectric investigation. Vertical electric resistivity sounding(VES) using Schlumberger configuration with maximum AB/2 = 500 m was conducted using the Gga 31 geoelectric DC- equipment. The sounding data analysis was conducted using two modern techniques which provide the equivalent layering. These are n-layers (step-function) model for each sounding cu...

Combination of results of both surface geoelectric resistivity with shallow seismic refraction techniques guided with few drill hole data, can contribute much to the detection of the shallow subsurface geologic condition which are in mutual interaction with the land use in the regional or local in the Nile Delta. In this study two aspects will be consider from the resistivity and seismic refraction investigations in a part of the eastern Nile Delta. The first aspect is pertaining with water table and the capillary fringe in the soil zone. While the second aspect contribute to the salinity and flow pattern in the sandy aquifer in the eastern part of Nile Delta. All these valuable environmental geophysical information in the eastern Nile Delta will be given in illustrated examples. The geoelectric cross sections in the eastern Nile Delta, portrays the shallow occurrence of the sands as turtle backs and buried geziras. Such shallow occurrence of the sands has a strong influence on the ...

Surface and subsurface samples recovered in shallow borings were examined to define the late Quaternary facies of the northeastern Nile Delta. Spatial distribution of lithofacies was supplemented by geoelectric soundings and lithologic descriptions of engineering foundation core logs. Earlier analysis of radiocarbon dated samples and archaeological reports have been consulted. Interpretation of facies has been made largely on the basis of their stratigraphic position, compositional, textural and faunal attributes. Counts of serrated pyroxenes (with hacksaw terminations) and iron oxide stained quartz grains serve to distinguish facies particularly sand samples which have no diagnostic environmental criteria. The late Quaternary of the northeastern Nile Delta consists of sand and mud facies in response to sea-level fluctuations and change in stream loads. Generally two stratigraphic units could be recognised. The basal unit (late Pleistocene) consists of iron oxide stained fluvial san...

Agricultural development and urbanisation require increasing demand for water. One of the most important sources of water is groundwater from the Nile Delta aquifer, in addition to the newly established El-Salam Canal that carries surface water from the northern Delta to Sinai. Information on the availability and suitability of water from the aquifer is needed to provide planners with adequate data for orderly development and wise use of this vital resource. The study area is located south of the famous archaeological site of San El-Hagr (Tanis), and attains an area of 900 Km2. The aquifer consists mainly of sands of late Pleistocene age, extending to large depths and is covered by the Nile mud cap (Holocene) that forms a semiconfining aquitard. Groundwater samples were collected from 39 wells and analysed to identify the chemical characteristics of water. The geographical distribution of the groundwater salinities indicates that the area of study can be divided into northern saline...

The increasing of population and urbanization of the north eastern Nile Delta as well as development programs for both land reclamation and industry have a direct im pact on the surface and subsurface geological environment. Therefore, the detailed study of the Late Quaternary geology is of prime importance for any development in this area. Within the present study, 150 VES using the Schlumberger's array have been conducted. Lithogical and hydrological data from boreholes were used to relate the interpreted resistivity variations of VES conducted over some of these boreholes. Thirty nine water samples are collected to evaluate the hydrochemical characters of the Quaternary aquifer and to control resistivity interpretation as the salinity is a dominant factor in the study area. The combining of VES interpretation with borehole records and hydrochemistry results has made it possible to delineate the major late Quaternary lithoresistivity units of flood plain deposits in the study ...

Al Asfar Lake is a shallow wetland and habitat for wildlife and birds in a desert environment. The water of this lake is originated from the drainage water collected by earthen drainage network and discharged into the lake. The purpose of this study was to assess physico- chemical characteristics and some of heavy metals in Al Asfar lake water. The studied parameters are iron, manganese, copper, zinc, cadmium, chromium, lead, pH, electrical conductivity and nitrate. Forty five of surface water samples were collected in March, 2013. The results revealed that, the pH ranged from (7.33 – 8.67), electrical conductivity ranged from (8.28 – 11.34 dS/m) and NO3- ranged from (0.84 – 2.29 mg/L). Also, heavy metals concentrations in water were found in the following order: Fe > Mn > Cu > Zn > Cd > Cr = Pb. The mean concentrations of heavy metals in surface water of Al Asfar lake ranged from (0.027- 0.159 ppm), (0.007- 0.142 ppm), (0.005-0.017 ppm), (0.005 – 0.066 ppm), (0.001-0...

Al Jaww Plain is a large spread of an area made up of gravel and sand outwashes from the Oman Mountains and deposited in the main wadies. Based on the results of the chemical analyses, the water sources have been classified into different categories according to its suitability. The water genesis including analyses by Sulin's graph and trilinear diagram is discussed. The chemical analysis indicates that the total dissolved content of the water of Quaternary aquifer has a general increasing trend from east to west. However, fresh water areas are associated with Wadi locations. This increase of the total dissolved solids in the western area of Al Jaww Plain is attributed to brine moving upward near Ain Al Faydah and to the existence of sabkha in areas of low elevation west of Jabal Hafit. The paper is concluded with an assessment for the suitability of groundwater for irrigation purposes.

Groundwater constitutes a vital water resource in the United Arab Emirates and Sultanate of Oman. Most of the water demand for agriculture purposes in the two countries is met by groundwater. Many of the important aquifers are located in coastal zones and are thus subject to the seawater intrusion problem. Excessive groundwater pumping to meet the increasing demands in conjunction with the scarcity of rainfall has contributed to the severity of the seawater intrusion problem in costal aquifers. This paper elaborates the geophysical activities that have been conducted in the two coastal aquifers of Wadi Ham, UAE and Wadi Al Batinha, Sultanate of Oman. Several geophysical cross sections were completed in Wadi Ham to assess the quality of the groundwater. An OhmMapper TR2 survey was performed at Al-Hail beach site, Al-Khod alluvial fan, Oman to map shallowdepth subsurface rsistivity and possible association with seawater intrusion.

Rainfall forms the main source for rec charging groundwater aquifer systems in the United Arab Emirates. Phreatic aquifers are recharged directly through rainwater infiltration, while confined aquifers are recharged through their outcropping areas. Apart from the quantum of rainfall, its distribution in space and time plays a vital role in the planning and management of water resources. When rain falls with heavy intensities and short durations, surface water runoff will be generated. The infiltration rate of the upper soil layer may not allow large quantities of the accumulated rainwater to percolate down through the soil and reach the aquifers. If the topography is flat, rainwater would continue to accumulate on the ground surface face causing ponds in the depression areas. Otherwise, if the land surface is mountainous, the rainfall will be collected through a number of tributaries and would reach the course of the main wadi causing floods.

This study is devoted to the investigation of the water potentiality and quality at Al Foah area, north of Al Ain city, UAE. This area is regarded as one of the cultivated areas in Abu Dhabi Emirate. Most of the water demand for domestic and agriculture purposes in this area is met by groundwater. Due to the expansion in the development activities and population growth, the groundwater is excessively over pumping. Groundwater levels dropped dramatically and salinity increased. Moreover, using of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for agriculture purposes are enhancing the contamination of the existing aquifers. In the geophysical investigations, 2-D electrical resistivity imaging is implemented. Nine 2-D resistivity profiles were conducted. Resistivity data interpretation was constrained by the available borehole lithologies and groundwater salinity. Fifty groundwater samples were collected for this study to characterize the chemistry of the aquifers of Al Foah area. Sa...

Advances in Geosciences Vol. 17: Hydrological Science (2008) Eds. Namsik Park et al. c World Scientific Publishing Company EVALUATION OF AGRICULTURE ACTIVITIES ON GROUNDWATER OF AL-FOAH AREA, NORTH OF AL-AIN, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE) SAMEH Y. ...