Numerical Canal Seepage Loss Evaluation for Different Lining and Crack Techniques in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions: A Case Study of the River Nile, Egypt

Abstract

Owing to the potential negative impacts of climatic changes and the grand Ethiopian renaissance dam, water scarcity has become an urgent issue. Therefore, the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has started a national project of the lining and rehabilitation of canals, to reduce seepage losses and for efficient water resource management. This study presents a new approach for assessing three different lining and crack techniques for the Ismailia canal, the largest end of the river Nile, Egypt. A 2-D steady state seep/w numerical model was developed for the Ismailia canal section, in the stretch at 28.00–49.00 km. The amount of seepage was significantly dependent on the hydraulic characteristics of the liner material. The extraction from aquifers via wells also had a considerable impact on the seepage rate from the unlined canals; however, a lesser effect was present in the case of lined canals. The concrete liner revealed the highest efficiency, followed by the geomembrane liner, and then the bentonite liner; with almost 99%, 96%, and 54%, respectively, without extraction, and decreasing by 4% for bentonite and geomembrane liners during extraction; however, the concrete lining efficiency did not change considerably. Nevertheless, the efficiency dramatically decreased to 25%, regardless of the lining technique, in the case of deterioration of the liner material. The double effect of both deterioration of the liner material and extraction from the aquifer showed a 16% efficiency, irrespective of the utilized lining technique.

The effect of lining hydraulic properties on the efficiency and cost of irrigation canal reconstruction

“…Modelling the seepage from polluted drains using geomembranes and concrete as a lining material reduced the extension of contaminants by 91.4 and 93% respectively compared with the natural condition (Abd-Elhamid et al, 2019). Numerical model used in irrigation canal revealed that concrete and geomembrane cause reduction of seepage 99 and 96 presents respectively, and utilized lining technique roles signi cantly impact of e ciency of lining material (Elkamhawy et al, 2021). In both cases, hydraulic conductivity of coating materials role the major factor for decreasing the seepage lose but the experimental study conducted by (Han et al, 2020) showed lower results under the in uence of natural and arti cial factors within some service time.…”

A Simplified Method for Leakage Estimation of Clay Core Dams with Different Groundwater Levels

“…Numerical methods were first employed to calculate the seepage flux several decades age [15], and have developed rapidly since the improvement of computer performance in recent years. Usually, there are three main numerical methods for seepage simulation, namely, the finite element method (FEM) [16][17][18][19], the finite difference method (FDM) [20][21][22], and the boundary element method (BEM) [23][24][25][26]. Aldulaimi [16] adopted a numerical approach utilizing FEM to simulate the seepage field of an earthfill dam, and the approach was used to carry out seepage analysis on an earth dam in Iraq.…”

“…Li et al [18] applied ABAQUS to calculate the seepage discharge of earth-rock dams under different conditions, based on which the phreatic line can be obtained. Elkamhawy et al [19] established a two-dimensional steady state model to calculate the leakage amount of the Ismailia canal and assessed the anti-seepage effect of lining. Smith et al [27] calibrated a numerical simulation tool, which can be widely used for seepage analysis.…”