Samy Ismail Elmahdy
United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Title: Geological structures control groundwater quality and quantity in Al Ain area, the United Arab Emirates UAE. An assessment using Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing
Biography
Biography: Samy Ismail Elmahdy
Abstract
Groundwater is the main source for land development in the Arabian Gulf countries particularly in the United Arab Emirates. To investigate the influence of geological structures on groundwater flow and accumulation, we used a set of multi-sources remote sensing data in a GIS to map fault zones and drainage pattern and spatially analyze their association with groundwater quantity and quality in Al Jaaw Plain, Al Ain, UAE. As a first step, the remote sensing data were spatially and atmospherically corrected and enhanced by applying a set of convolution filters. After that, the main fault zones and drainage pattern were extracted manually and automatically from SAR images and Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM). These features were brought into a GIS environment to correlate them against groundwater data (e.g. hydraulic head, thickness aquifer, and groundwater salinity). The results of the study show that the drainage pattern, thickness of the aquifer, and topography are structural controlled by NNW– SSE, NE–SW, and ENE–WSW trending fault zones, significantly influencing the groundwater flow and groundwater quality in Al Jaaw Plain. The results also show the groundwater flow follow the trends of fault zones and the groundwater quality increases as the flow length increases from the east to the west.