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Contaminants can be found in the groundwater through natural processes, such as seawater intrusion, or due to human activities that can adversely affect the quantity, quality, and distribution of the groundwater. In order to assess the influence of human activities and seawater intrusion on the groundwater chemistry in the Central Nile Delta region, groundwater was collected from 167 production wells, with depths of 15–120 m. In addition, eight soil-water samples were collected from depths of about 1 m. The groundwater samples were divided based on well depths into three zones: shallow zone (<40 m depth), intermediate zone (41–60 m depth), and deep zone (>60 m depth). The TDS, EC, pH, K+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Cl−, HCO3−, and SO42- were determined for all water samples. The groundwater samples with Cl of 100–200 mg/L and EC of 600–2,000 μs/cm represent mixing between freshwater and saltwater. The increase in TDS and concentrations of all major ions toward the northern parts reflected the impact of the seawater intrusion. The groundwater had an Na/Cl ratio of 0.46–2.75, indicating the influence of both seawater intrusion and anthropogenic activities on groundwater chemistry. In addition, the high Ca/Mg, Ca/SO4, and Ca/HCO3 ratios (>1) indicated that the groundwater was intruded by seawater. The obtained water types, the ionic ratios, and the saturation index results suggested that anthropogenic activities, water-rock interaction, infiltration, mineral weathering, and seawater intrusion are the main processes controlling the variation and evolution of groundwater chemistry.

Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) technique was used to determine the concentrations of titanium (Ti), vanadium (V), Chromium (Cr), Manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), arsenic (As), zirconium (Zr), cadmium (Cd) and hafnium (Hf) in black sands samples. 18 black sands samples were collected from the Mediterranean coast-Abu Khashabou Rosetta area, Egypt. Alkaline fusion procedure using mixture of Li-meta borate and tetra borate was used for the digestion of black sands samples. The average concentrations of Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Zn, As, Zr, Cd and Hf were 435.06 ppm, 322.32 ppm, 2515.03 ppm, 596.45 ppm, 185894 ppm, 249.95 ppm,309.32 ppm, 1077.26 ppm, 33.56 ppm and 3520.32 ppm, respectively. The procedure was tested with Basalt Hawaiian Volcanic Observatory (BHVO-2) standard reference material.

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Relative effects of spatio-seasonal variations on the quantitative and qualitative status of phytoplankton in 20 sampling locations of Temsah Lake were examined during winter and summer 2018. The study reveals that the population structure consisted of 105 species from 69 genera, with an annual average of 924155 cell/L. Bacillariophyceae formed the most dominant group with 42.45% of total phytoplankton with an average of 372379 cell/L. Navicula creptocephala was the most abundant species representing 19.16% of total diatoms and 7.78% of the whole standing crop with an annual average of 376879 cell/L. The highest phytoplankton abundance was in the Northern locations. Phytoplankton density showed a negative correlation of pH, temperature and TDS and positively correlated with nutrient content such as nitrate and silicate. In general, summer showed high indices value compared to winter and the diversity index in the current study ranged in moderate pollution range. The polluted state of the aquatic ecosystem in El-Temsah Lake during summer is comparatively higher than winter during the study period. Palmer’s and diversity indices showed that Northern sites were the most flourishing and polluted sites. The study also recorded a number of tolerate algae (13 genera and 8 species), which can be used as an indicator for different degrees of organic pollution. Genus and species Palmer’s Index scores of the northern site were in the range of ≥20 during summer, indicating most of the sampling locations showed probable to confirmed high level of organic pollution.

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