This project supports a collaborative research between Dr. Mohamed Sultan, Department of Geology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan and Dr. Ahmad Wagdy, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. They plan to develop methodologies to locate and assess the renewable groundwater resources in Sinai. The two PIs are currently funded by the United Nations Development Program / GEF to develop reliable techniques for evaluating the extent of renewable ground water resources in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, and to evaluate the source(s) of the groundwater, and its extent. In this project they plan to build on the acquired expertise and to refine the newly developed methodologies to locate and assess the renewable groundwater resources in Sinai.
Intellectual Merits: The PIs will investigate two main potential water resources in Sinai: (a) sporadic precipitation that occurs over mountainous areas that ultimately reside within highly fractured basement reservoirs or as surface runoff and as subsurface groundwater flow and which ultimately reside in the alluvial aquifers flooring the main valleys, and (b) Nubian aquifer groundwater channeled through deep-seated sub-vertical faults and ultimately residing in near-surface alluvial aquifers. They will apply integrated methodologies involving the use of isotopic techniques (O, H), remote sensing, field, meteorologic, and surface runoff studies to locate reservoirs in question and to assess their ground water potentiality.
Broader Impacts: This research is expected to produce a replicable model that could be applied in neighboring Middle Eastern and Saharan countries and other arid and hyper arid parts of the world, including in the southwestern part of the U.S.A., and could assist in decreasing the pressures on the existing water supplies and the ecosystems they support. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.
