Sustainable groundwater resources are a critical issue for national development in developing countries like Egypt, which is characterized by a semi-arid to arid climate and low per capita share of fresh water as a result of progressive population increase and especially after the construction of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It is mandatory to adopt and modify methods suitable for preserving and efficient use of available water resources. The Eocene carbonate aquifer in the desert area under study (West El-Minia, Mid-Upper Egypt) is partially renewable; its sustainable development in irrigation is explored in this work. The (recharge–withdraw–exploit) regimes have been optimized by keeping the well abstraction below the fraction of renewable recharge and maximizing the exploit by selecting low water -consuming crops of high economic value. A novel approach is introduced in this work by integrating isotope hydrology techniques with numerical modeling; environmental isotopes (18O and D) contents of 62 groundwater samples have been used to determine and map the contribution of recent recharge in the study area (from 10 to 95%) and to constrain the acceptable reduction in hydraulic head allowed under an optimized withdraw and usage regime. Different scenarios were proposed by changing (rate of pumping, number of wells, wells distribution and irrigated crops) and simulating aquifer behavior to achieve the sustainable yield goals and the best plan for groundwater management in the study area. Graphical abstract
Water quality deterioration hinders economic and social development in developing countries that are facing freshwater security and shortages. This study based on the collection of 29 water samples and focused on the relationship between sewage treatment plant and groundwater system surrounding it using multidisciplinary approach that combines the characterization of groundwater system and its connection with surrounding canal and drains; using chemical and isotopic characterization revealing that there is a direct relation between the surface water system and surrounding groundwater system. About 58% of the groundwater samples and all surface water samples in the investigated area are threatened by high concentrations of trace elements. The multivariate statistical analysis elucidates that anthropogenic effect, fertilizers sewage contamination are the main causes of groundwater pollution. Nearly; 31% and 11.5% of groundwater samples posing oral chronic non carcinogenic health risk and dermal chronic risk for adult, respectively. While all surface water samples were posing oral chronic non carcinogenic health risk, with no dermal hazard. Visual MINTAQ geochemical modeling program was used for determining the groundwater aqueous species distribution to indicate their effect on the distribution of trace element in groundwater, revealing that Ba, Mn, Zn, and Sr existed as free radical ion in the hazardous samples; revealing that those elements would be available for further sorption process and can be mitigated through sorption processes. The uncharged species of Fe and Al are expected to be more mobile in groundwater because they would not be attracted to the surface charge of minerals. Inorganic ligands (HCO3−, SO42−, Cl−, and NO3−) act as nucleation centers that were linked with those trace elements creating new species with higher solubility degree in water that are transported away randomly for long distances in the water path.
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