Impacts of Seawater Rise on Seawater Intrusion in the Nile Delta Aquifer, Egypt

Abstract

Several investigations have recently considered the possible impacts of climate change and seawater level rise on seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers. All have revealed the severity of the problem and the significance of the landward movement of the dispersion zone under the condition of seawater level rise. Most of the studies did not consider the possible effects of the seawater rise on the inland movement of the shoreline and the associate changes in the boundary conditions at the seaside and the domain geometry. Such effects become more evident in flat, low land, coastal alluvial plans where large areas might be submerged with seawater under a relatively small increase in the seawater level. None of the studies combined the effect of increased groundwater pumping, due to the possible decline in precipitation and shortage in surface water resources, with the expected landward shift of the shore line. In this article, the possible effects of seawater level rise in the Mediterranean Sea on the seawater intrusion problem in the Nile Delta Aquifer are investigated using FEFLOW. The simulations are conducted in horizontal view while considering the effect of the shoreline landward shift using digital elevation models. In addition to the basic run (current conditions), six different scenarios are considered. Scenarios one, two, and three assume a 0.5 m seawater rise while the total pumping is reduced by 50%, maintained as per the current conditions and doubled, respectively. Scenarios four, five, and six assume a 1.0 m seawater rise and the total pumping is changed as in the first three scenarios. The shoreline is moved to account for the seawater rise and hence the study domain and the seaside boundary are modified accordingly. It is concluded that, large areas in the coastal zone of the Nile Delta will be submerged by seawater and the coast line will shift landward by several kilometers in the eastern and western sides of the Delta. Scenario six represents the worst case under which the volume of freshwater will be reduced to about 513 km(3) (billion m(3) ).

Quantifying the trade-offs between energy consumption and salt removal rate in membrane-free cation intercalation desalination

“…Global water shortage has led to energy intensive water extraction and treatment methods including desalination [1]. Further, water resources are depleting due to exogenous factors, including pollution [2] and salt intrusion in groundwater due to seawater-level rise [3,4,5]. A variety of desalination technologies have been developed during the past 50 years, including pressure-driven reverse osmosis, thermally driven multi-stage flash and multi-effect distillation, electrodialysis (ED), and capacitive deionization (CDI) [6,7,8,9].…”

Prioritizing countermeasures for reducing seawater‐intrusion area by considering regional characteristics using SEAWAT and a multicriteria decision‐making method

“…Much research is currently being conducted on such simulations using various numerical analysis models such as MOFLOW, FEFLOW, SUTRA, SEAWAT, MOCDENS3D, and FEMWATER (Carneiro et al, ; Green & MacQuarrie, ; Koussis, Mazi, Riou, & Destouni, ; Michael, Russoniello, & Byron, ; Morgan, Bakker, & Werner, ; Oude Essink, Van Baaren, & De Louw, ). In addition, together with sea‐level rise, studies on the influence of seawater intrusion due to overpumping of groundwater are ongoing (Bobba, ; Carretero, Rapaglia, Bokuniewicz, & Kruse, ; Langevin & Zygnerski, ; Loáiciga, Pingel, & Garcia, ; Rasmussen, Sonnenborg, Goncear, & Hinsby, ; Sefelnasr & Sherif, ; Shellie, Charles, Kolja, & Aly, ).…”

Groundwater recharge and salinization in the arid coastal plain aquifer of the Wadi Watir delta, Sinai, Egypt

“…Alluvial aquifers in arid to semiarid coastal regions worldwide supply freshwater, such as the coastal plain aquifers in the Nile Delta (Sefelnasr and Sherif, 2014) along the northwestern coast of Egypt (Eissa et al, 2015a;, the Korba plain in Tunisia (Salma et al, 2010), the Eastern Batinah region in northern Oman (Weyhenmeyer, 2002), and along the Arabian Gulf in northern United Arab Emirates (Alsharhan et al, 2001). In the Wadi Watir delta in Sinai, Egypt, as in many arid coastal regions of the world, potable water is limited to a shallow alluvial aquifer that provides the main potable water supply for Nuweiba Harbor located on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba (Fig.…”