Author(s): Ramadan Abdelaziz; Mahmoud Ibrahim Bakr
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: GMS; PEST; Pilot Point; LANDSAT
Abstract: Egypt is mostly covered by desert and only 4% of the total lands is arable, mainly the alluvial plain of the Nile and its delta. In order to cope with the increasing population, the government of Egypt was forced into developing the Sinai Peninsula. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate potential groundwater resources which may be useful in the development of the Sinai Peninsula. The key elements are a conceptual component and a groundwater model with certain mathematical components. The conceptual model is a system analysis of the hydrogeological understanding of how water flows into, through, and out of a groundwater system. Finally a finite difference groundwater model was applied utilizing the graphic user interface GMS (which is an acronym for Groundwater Model System) was used. In order to handle problems at a regional scale, the pilot point method in conjunction with PEST (Parameter ESTimation) was used to parameterize the hydraulic conductivity automatically. Moreover, we defined a set of scatter points where the hydraulic conductivity is assigned as a pilot point. It should be noted that the method of pilot points requires a definition of an interpolation method to estimate the spatial distribution of the calibration parameters using their values at the pilot points. The inverse distance method was applied for interpolating among pilot points. Recharge and hydraulic conductivity were calibrated simultaneously. Recharge was parameterized using zones. By defining these zones several factors were considered: surface geology, density of vegetation, general land use, and LANDSAT image.
Year: 2012