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CLIMATIC CHANGE DETECTION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COASTAL ZONE (EGYPT) AND ITS POSSIBLE IMPACT ON WATER RESOURCE

Article

Last updated: 01 Jan 2025

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Water

Abstract

In the study area, which extends for about 500 km along the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, the seasonal rainfall is the sole source of water for development activities through either runoff harvesting or shallow aquifer recharge. Rainfall and other meteorological data in the study area were collected from two sources: NASA satellite site and ground stations; namely from west to east Sallum, Barrani, Matruh, Dabaa and Alexandria. Such data have been analyzed to detect and assess any spatial and temporal climatic changes during the period (1900-2014) and the possible impacts upon the shallow groundwater potentials. During the last century, the highest value of annual rainfall was recorded in Alexandria in 1974 (405.1 mm), while the lowest value was recorded in Sallum in 1955 (32.8 mm).This may indicate that extreme climatic conditions were prevailing during the period (1955-1970) from further west to further east. The calculated arithmetic mean of the annual rainfall in the study area is 138.44 mm. The rainfall frequency during the whole period of measurements shows continuous fluctuation either below (Sallum), or above (Alexandria) arithmetic mean. Local climatic changes every 15 years or multiples in the study area are detected through the period 1900-2014. Variations during the whole period of records are well detected, where it ranged from 76.5 mm (Matruh, 1923), 76 mm (Barrani, 1913) and 62 mm (Alexandria, 1938) indicating relative wet condition in the first third of the past century (1910-1940), compared with the whole period. The return period shows that the probability for the occurrence of annual rainfall can be doubled from the mean every about sixty years in all stations except for Sallum, where it be doubled every only 30 years.  According to the calculated aridity index, the study area lies between hyper arid in the west to arid climate in the east, without any serious spatial or temporal changes. The temperature analysis indicates that there is a noticeable increase in temperature between the years 1955-1970 and 1995-2010.  Worth mentioning the year 2010 is one of the warmest years during this period. In addition, this year (2010) had the lowest amount of rainfall in all the study area (average 50 mm/year). Consequently, the study area was subject to two drought periods (1955-1970 and 1995- 2010) against one relative wet period (1910-1940). The shallow groundwater has been considerably influenced by climatic change in the study area. Water levels have been prominently decreased to about 16.0 m below the mean sea level (zero level) in some localities; e.g. Dabaa - east Matruh. Meanwhile, water salinity increased from about 3000 ppm (1970) to more than 10000 ppm (2010). The water shortage in the drought events, as well as, the over-pumping of wells, cause serious reduction of the thickness of the fresh water lens that floats by specific gravity on the top of the saline water.

DOI

10.21608/ejdr.2015.5952

Keywords

Climate Change, water resources, rainfall analysis, return period, Northwest coast, Egypt

Authors

First Name

Salah

Last Name

Abdel Moghith

MiddleName

M.

Affiliation

Department of Hydrology, Desert Research Center, El-Matareya, Cairo, Egypt

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Nahla

Last Name

Morad

MiddleName

A.

Affiliation

Department of Hydrology, Desert Research Center, El-Matareya, Cairo, Egypt

Email

nahlamorad@hotmail.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Milad

Last Name

Masoud

MiddleName

H.

Affiliation

Water Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

Email

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City

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Orcid

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Volume

65

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

1070

Issue Date

2015-12-01

Receive Date

2018-04-07

Publish Date

2015-12-01

Page Start

233

Page End

255

Print ISSN

1687-8043

Online ISSN

2356-9875

Link

https://ejdr.journals.ekb.eg/article_5952.html

Detail API

https://ejdr.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=5952

Order

3

Type

Original Article

Type Code

117

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Desert Research

Publication Link

https://ejdr.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

CLIMATIC CHANGE DETECTION IN THE NORTHWESTERN COASTAL ZONE (EGYPT) AND ITS POSSIBLE IMPACT ON WATER RESOURCE

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023