Assessment of groundwater resources to support urban extension in West Nile Delta, Egypt

Abstract

The study area represents a western urban extension of the overpopulated Nile Delta toward the west. The exploration and evaluation of groundwater in the West Nile Delta has great importance because of the need to establish new industrial and agricultural areas while preserving the agricultural lands of the Nile Delta. This study includes the direct current (DC) resistivity method for exploring water-bearing layers and the hydrogeochemical assessment of groundwater for drinking, irrigation, and other uses. The DC resistivity results reflected four geoelectrical layers, with one water-bearing layer selected. The hydrogeochemical evaluation was carried out by the analysis of physicochemical parameters and major ion concentrations. The water quality index (WQI) results showed that the groundwater was divided into 53.3% excellent, 33.3% good, 6.6% poor, 6.6% very poor, and 0% unsuitable for drinking. The electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, soluble sodium percentage, sodium absorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate, magnesium absorption ratio, and chloride content were used to estimate the groundwater quality for irrigation. While TDS, total hardness, and corrosivity ratio were used to evaluate groundwater for domestic uses, the findings of the WQI study recommend that the excellent and good water wells can be utilized for drinking, while the remainder of the wells can’t be used without filtering with adequate membranes.