Proposing the Optimum Withdrawing Scenarios to Provide the Western Coastal Area of Port Said, Egypt, with Sufficient Groundwater with Less Salinity

Abstract

Recently, groundwater resources in Egypt have become one of the important sources to meet human needs and activities, especially in coastal areas such as the western area of Port Said, where seawater desalination cannot be used due to the problem of oil spill and the reliance upon groundwater resources. Thus, the purpose of the study is the sustainable management of the groundwater resources in the coastal aquifer entailing groundwater abstraction. In this regard, the Visual MODFLOW and SEAWAT codes were used to simulate groundwater flow and seawater intrusion in the study area for 50 years (from 2018 to 2068) to predict the drawdown, as well as the salinity distribution due to the pumping of the wells on the groundwater coastal aquifer based on field investigation data and numerical modelling. Different well scenarios were used, such as the change in well abstraction rate, the different numbers of abstraction wells, the spacing between the abstraction wells and the change in screen depth in abstraction. The recommended scenarios were selected after comparing the predicted drawdown and salinity results for each scenario to minimize the seawater intrusion and preserve these resources from degradation.