In this research, an attempt was carried out for land reclamation in the central part
of Darb El Arbeain through evaluation of aquifer performance. The study area occupies the
middle part of Darb EL-Arbeain and bounded by long. 30o 15/ and 30o 25/ E and lat. 23o 55/
and 24o 05/ N, it has an area of about 120 Km2. In this study four suggested scenarios of
pumping rates have been explored to fit with the Egyptian ministry of irrigation using the
three dimensional finite difference flow model (MODFLOW 2005) to simulate the flow
system. These scenarios include running the model with abstraction from the aquifers equal
1.1, 1.8, 2.8, and 3.7 of calculated initial recharge. The results indicated that the head
stabilising time is around 65 years at 1.1 pumping scenario and around 100 years at 3.7 of
pumping rate of the calculated aquifer recharge, and the stabilizing drawdown time is around
the half value of the aquifer head stabilizing time. The best recommended area for drilling
more water wells is the north eastern parts and the southern western area. The study
introduced new classification for confined aquifer classification where set that any confined
aquifer exploiting 100 000 m3/day with less than 20m aquifer drawdown, aquifer response, is
classified as high potential, meanwhile under same exploitation rate with 20-40 mt as aquifer
response is considered as moderate potentiality, and the rest is low in potentiality. |
