Mona Metawee, Sultan A. S. Araffa, Amal Othman, Mohamed El Alfy
{"title":"Geophysical and geospatial insights into surface and subsurface characteristics for groundwater potential analysis, Ras Sudr, West Sinai, Egypt","authors":"Mona Metawee, Sultan A. S. Araffa, Amal Othman, Mohamed El Alfy","doi":"10.1007/s12665-024-11915-5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Ras Sudr has garnered significant interest owing to various initiatives aimed at expanding and developing this area. It holds considerable strategic importance, serving as a key development hub in Sinai and a focal point for tourism destination. Moreover, it has a remarkable event with flashfloods which can be utilized for groundwater or direct usage. Integrating geophysical and geospatial analyses to study the surface and subsurface characteristics as well as identify groundwater potential areas in Ras Sudr, west-central Sinai is the main objective of this study. Firstly, geophysical data including gravity and magnetic methods have a crucial importance in qualitative and quantitative interpretation of the subsurface elements. Filtering techniques were implemented to distinguish between regional and residual anomalies. Geophysical data were subjected to the radial average power spectrum technique and 3D Euler deconvolution to identify the depth of the subsurface sources. The structure pattern that characterizes the interested region was defined by employing bandpass filter and edge detection appoarches using residual anomaly maps, regional anomaly maps, tilt derivatives and total horizontal gradient maps reflecting four distinct structural trends; NW-SE parallel to the Gulf of Suez, NEE-SWW parallel to the Syrian arc system, N-S parallel to the the Nile Valley, and NNE-SSW parallel to the Gulf of Aqaba. A basement relief map was constructed using 3D magnetic modelling showing that the depth of the basement ranges from 1.6 to 6.3 km. Secondly, the remote sensing data including Sentienl-2 and SRTM datasets were employed to extract the surface analyses in the GIS environment to develop the occurrence of groundwater potentiality utilizing seven factors; LU-LC, soil, geology, slope, drainage network and lineament density and rainfall data of the study area which were ranked from 1 to 5 and weighted according to their effective contribution to the infiltration of groundwater using AHP-GIS based multi criteria method. The resulting Groundwater Potential zone (GWPZ) was categorized into five zones from poor to excellent and validated using 41 observed wells. A significant quantity of wells was identified in the areas of high potential located to the west of the region, while five wells were situated within the moderate potential zone. Thereby, the GWPZ map identifying locations with viable groundwater resources suitable for habitation, development and economic plans in Sinai for decision makers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":542,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Earth Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12665-024-11915-5.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Earth Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-024-11915-5","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Ras Sudr has garnered significant interest owing to various initiatives aimed at expanding and developing this area. It holds considerable strategic importance, serving as a key development hub in Sinai and a focal point for tourism destination. Moreover, it has a remarkable event with flashfloods which can be utilized for groundwater or direct usage. Integrating geophysical and geospatial analyses to study the surface and subsurface characteristics as well as identify groundwater potential areas in Ras Sudr, west-central Sinai is the main objective of this study. Firstly, geophysical data including gravity and magnetic methods have a crucial importance in qualitative and quantitative interpretation of the subsurface elements. Filtering techniques were implemented to distinguish between regional and residual anomalies. Geophysical data were subjected to the radial average power spectrum technique and 3D Euler deconvolution to identify the depth of the subsurface sources. The structure pattern that characterizes the interested region was defined by employing bandpass filter and edge detection appoarches using residual anomaly maps, regional anomaly maps, tilt derivatives and total horizontal gradient maps reflecting four distinct structural trends; NW-SE parallel to the Gulf of Suez, NEE-SWW parallel to the Syrian arc system, N-S parallel to the the Nile Valley, and NNE-SSW parallel to the Gulf of Aqaba. A basement relief map was constructed using 3D magnetic modelling showing that the depth of the basement ranges from 1.6 to 6.3 km. Secondly, the remote sensing data including Sentienl-2 and SRTM datasets were employed to extract the surface analyses in the GIS environment to develop the occurrence of groundwater potentiality utilizing seven factors; LU-LC, soil, geology, slope, drainage network and lineament density and rainfall data of the study area which were ranked from 1 to 5 and weighted according to their effective contribution to the infiltration of groundwater using AHP-GIS based multi criteria method. The resulting Groundwater Potential zone (GWPZ) was categorized into five zones from poor to excellent and validated using 41 observed wells. A significant quantity of wells was identified in the areas of high potential located to the west of the region, while five wells were situated within the moderate potential zone. Thereby, the GWPZ map identifying locations with viable groundwater resources suitable for habitation, development and economic plans in Sinai for decision makers.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Earth Sciences is an international multidisciplinary journal concerned with all aspects of interaction between humans, natural resources, ecosystems, special climates or unique geographic zones, and the earth:
Water and soil contamination caused by waste management and disposal practices
Environmental problems associated with transportation by land, air, or water
Geological processes that may impact biosystems or humans
Man-made or naturally occurring geological or hydrological hazards
Environmental problems associated with the recovery of materials from the earth
Environmental problems caused by extraction of minerals, coal, and ores, as well as oil and gas, water and alternative energy sources
Environmental impacts of exploration and recultivation – Environmental impacts of hazardous materials
Management of environmental data and information in data banks and information systems
Dissemination of knowledge on techniques, methods, approaches and experiences to improve and remediate the environment
In pursuit of these topics, the geoscientific disciplines are invited to contribute their knowledge and experience. Major disciplines include: hydrogeology, hydrochemistry, geochemistry, geophysics, engineering geology, remediation science, natural resources management, environmental climatology and biota, environmental geography, soil science and geomicrobiology.