Geospatial analysis in groundwater resources management as a tool for reclamation areas of New Valley (El-Oweinat), Egypt

摘要

The purpose of this paper is the application of geospatial data and techniques on the evaluation of potential groundwater management and uses in south New Valley (East El-Oweinat area), western desert of Egypt. An integration of geophysical, hydrogeological and remote sensing data into a Geographic Information System (GIS) has been used to determine groundwater potential zones for sustainable development. In the hydrogeophysical study, correlation of subsurface lithofacles has been carried out in different directions based on well logging data (Gamma ray, SP and normal short and long resistivity logs). The aquifer and aquitard thicknesses have been determined in the intensive study area. Moreover, a relationship between borehole resistivity and the hydraulic characteristics has been constructed in order to calculate transmissivity and hydraulic conductivity. In the hydrogeological study, analyses of pumping tests have been carried out especially the step drawdown tests for the groundwater wells. These pumping tests will determine the well performance criteria such as well loss, aquifer loss, well efficiency and optimum pumping rates. In the Remote Sensing and GIS study, Landsat imagery and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) have been processed, analyzed and managed in layers of data set. These data were used to gather current information for the surface topographic features such as elevation, slope, land use/cover and sand dunes in the study area. Sand dunes are located in the northwestern direction and are considered as a very low potentiality due to the effect of these dunes on the agricultural activities. Finally, an integration of these surface and subsurface geospatial characteristic into GIS environment has been carried out. Natural breaks classification method has been used in order to classify each thematic map. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been used in order to create the final groundwater potentiality map. Four zones A, B, C and D have been selected to be the most potentiality zones with different capacities which can be used for drilling new groundwater wells.