الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 271 |  |  |
| | | from | 271 | | |
Abstract
Recent rapid population growth associated with economy expansion of the Sinai Peninsula has put much pressure on the water needs that are insufficient for the projected mega projects in the area. Accordingly, serious strategies for water development to better understand the factors affecting the water quantity and quality degradation should be established. This is to fully utilize the surface and groundwater resources at economic costs based on sound scientific bases that rely commonly on the advanced technologies of remote sensing, geoinformatics, and accurate analytical techniques. Wadi Al-Arish is considered one of the most target areas from the Egyptian Authorities to overcome the shortage in water supply in the northern Sinai by harvesting surface water and recharging the shallow groundwater aquifers. In this context, many projects are established such as El-Rawafaa man-made dam to protect Al-Arish city from the flood water and to help in the development of northern Sinai especially Wadi Al-Arish received a considerable amount of flood water annually. The Egyptian Authorities were supplied this area by more than 50 km2 agricultural projects expanded to the south of Al-Arish city and these projects need a continuous sources of water. Therefore, the present study aims to assess the surface runoff and flash flood potentiality as well as the groundwater recharge and quality in W. Al-Arish drainage basin. Wadi Al-Arish drainage basin is located in North Sinai between latitudes 29° 00` and 31° 10` N and longitudes 33° 05` and 34° 40` E. The main stream of Wadi Al-Arish is drained into the Mediterranean Sea. Wadi Al- Arish surface is covered by sedimentary rocks that belong to the Phanerozoic Era and range in age from Triassic to Quaternary. An integrated approach of using hydro-morphometric, hydrological, and spatio-temporal monitoring and assessment of the groundwater resources was applied to maximize the benefits from both water resources; surface (flash flood), and the groundwater. A comprehensive hydro-morphometric study was carried out to evaluate the flash flood possibility in the study area, which causes extensive losses of life and property. In this respect, Wadi Al-Arish basin and its sub-basins and their corresponding drainage networks were delineated automatically. Digital elevation model (DEM) with high accuracy was produced and its derivatives (e.g slope, aspect and hillshade) were extracted to visualize the land surface and to form a basis for comparing areas of different geomorphological characteristics. The drainage system was extracted from SRTM DEM (30 m spatial resolution) in sequence of steps described as: filling sinks, flow direction, flow accumulation, conditional analysis, stream order and stream to feature to generate the stream network polylines. Detailed quantitative analysis of the morphometric parameters of the drainage system (basin and networks) was performed to assess the hydrologic responses of these parameters and to predict the runoff and flood potential, which threats the urban sites. Wadi Al-Arish basin was assigned into seven sub-basins namely W. Heridein, W. El Hamma, W. Geraia, W. El Bruk, Center W. Al-Arish, W. El Fetany El Aqaba, and W. Yarqa Aby Taryafa. The morphometric analysis of the studied basin and its sub-basin showed dendritic, parallel, rectangular and annular drainage pattern with 8th stream order which reflecting the homogeneity in surface texture and lithologic cover. The maximum stream order frequency is observed in case of first order streams and then for second order. Hence, it is noticed that there is decrease in stream frequency as the stream order increases and vice versa. The values of stream frequency indicate that all the sub-basins show positive correlation with increasing stream population with respect to increasing drainage density. The moderate drainage density indicates the basin is moderate permeable subsoil and vegetative cover. The circularity, elongation ratios and form factor show nearly elongated basin and its sub-basins with moderate relief, moderate discharge, and long main channel. The hypsometric curves exhibit remarkably concave shapes which indicate that all sub-basins and W. Al-Arish are at the old-age or monadnock phase which represent their moderate to weak activities.