Groundwater Resources Management of the Shallow Groundwater Aquifer in the Desert Fringes of El Beheira Governorate, Egypt

Groundwater resources management is a master key for sustainable development of any region especially for agricultural, domestic, industrial and economic stability in the arid and semiarid regions. The study area is an important portion of the Egyptian desert fringes, where the groundwater in the shallow aquifer is started for exploitation since 30 years ago. Most of the groundwater wells were drilled randomly regardless of the hydrological rules such as well radius of influence and interference of cones of depressions, well losses and formation losses, which leads to the noteworthy drawdown of the water table and salinity enhancement. Hence, the main objective of this study is an attempt to draw a management road map of the shallow groundwater aquifer to avoid the depletion of water table and deterioration of water quality. In this study, all the hydrological parameters of the shallow confined to semi-confined aquifer were measured and calculated (~ 30 wells). The hydrological parameters (aquifer thickness, depth to water, water table and drawdown, transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity, well losses, formation losses and radius interference) between the pumping wells are based on the analyses of long duration and step-test pumping for 30 wells. The main findings in this study show that the drawdown ranges between 3.2 and 19.1 m, TDS ranges from 320 to 2970 mg/l, and the calculated radius interference between the drilled wells should not be less than about 350 m. In addition, efficiency of the wells ranges between 15.1 and 99%. Also, results show that 73% of the study wells are good to excellent efficiency, while about 27% of the wells have low values of efficiency which need a considerable management strategy.