Geophysical investigation to reveal the groundwater condition at new Borg El-Arab industrial city, Egypt

摘要

New Borg El-Arab City, 60km to the southwest of Alexandria City, is one of new industrial cities planned by the Egyptian Government through its program to transfer the population from the condensed Nile Delta to other places in Egypt. Because such a city includes airport, huge buildings, factories, and worker settlements, a careful geophysical study is planned to reveal the groundwater condition. This will help in defining the places of wells that are supposed to be drilled. Therefore more industrial and agricultural activities will be flourished.The present study embraces Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES’es) and Time Domain Electromagnetic sounding (TEM) to investigate the study area. The study aimstodelineate the main subsurface conditions from the viewpoint of groundwater location, depth and water quality. Analysis and interpretation of the obtained results reveal that the subsurface consists of five geoelectrical layers with a gentle general slope toward the Mediterranean Sea. The third and the fourth layers in the succession are suggested to be the two water bearing formations of which the third layer is saturated with fresh water overlying saline water at the bottom of the fourth one. It is worth mentioning that the fresh water depth varies between 50 and 354m under the ground surface. The thickness of the fresh water aquifer varies from 9.5 to 66m; and the saline water depth varies between 116 and 384m below the ground surface, the thickness of saline water aquifer differs from 34 to 90.5m.