HYDROGEOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF WADI QENA BY USING GEOELECTRICAL AND AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES | ||
| Journal of Egyptian Geophysical Society | ||
| Volume 9, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 61-74 PDF (1.05 M) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jegs.2011.384438 | ||
| Authors | ||
| M.A. Khaled; G.H.G. Hussein | ||
| Geophysical Exploration Department, Desert Research Center (DRC). | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Wadi Qena Basin lies in the Central part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt. It runs from north-east to south-west for about 270 km long (obsequent wadi). It debouches into the Nile River at Qena City. Its watershed area reaches about 18000 km2. The main task of this work is studying the hydrogeological setting of Wadi Qena basin by using both the morphometric, aerial photographic and geoelectric techniques. Detailed morphometric analysis was made using topographic maps (scale 1:100,000) for the whole Qena basin. A mosaic from 740 aerial photographic sheets was made covering most of the study basin. 43 vertical electric sounding (VES) stations were conducted along the main stream of wadi Qena (covering about 120 km) and two main tributaries (wadis Qerdy and Fateira sub-basins). The detailed morphometric analysis clarifies that Wadi Qena hydrographic basin has low stream frequency value (0.867 km-1). This means that this basin has less possibility to collect surface water runoff. Accordingly, this situation gives more chance to the downward infiltration. The basin tends to be elongated. It has a relatively high bifurcation ratio (3.8). The basin has a vast area and receives annually too much water quantities to infiltrate all downward. Accordingly, this hydrographic basin is considered as one of the dangerous basins among the Eastern Desert in its flash flood phenomenon. The eastern and middle parts of Qena basin has the main trend of El Aqaba (NE-SW) that plays a principal role in recharging the Nubia Sandstone aquifer. The northern part of Qena basin has both Suez and Aqaba Gulf trends (NW-SE and NE-SW respectively) that may give a more chance for groundwater recharge in this zone. The main water bearing formation (Nubia Sandstone aquifer) is confining by the capping impermeable layers. The peizometeric water level is recorded to be about 300 m.a.s.l. The drilled wells at the southern portion of that profile are detected to be flowing (artesian); while at the northern portion the well is of free table type. Two aquifers along the main profile of Wadi Qena were detected. The first is the shallow aquifer (at the wad fill which detected at the delta of the wadi, especially at Aras hand dug well), and the second is the deep and the main aquifer (Nubia Sandstone) which detected along the profile. Three faults were detected along Wadi Qena (between sites of VES No. 1 to VES No. 24), which affect the ground water level and thickness of the water bearing formation. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Wadi Qena; morphometric analysis; aerial photography; geoelectric; hydrogeology; wadis Qerdy and Fateira | ||
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