HYDROGEOCHEMICAL AND ISOTOPIC STUDY ON EL SALHIA AREA, EAST NILE DELTA, EGYPT.

Abstract

El Salhia El Gedida is located to the east of the Nile Delta, between Ismailia and El kassara Canals. It is bounded by latitudes 30o 32` 24˝ and 30o 40` 12˝ N and longitudes 31 o 49` 12˝ and 32o 11` 24˝ E. It represents one of the major reclamation land projects in Egypt. Nile water does not satisfy all water demands for agricultural activities, and groundwaters receive great attention to meet the demands of irrigations. The present work aims to study the geochemical evolution of groundwater in the study area and seeks to answer the following questions. 1. What are the Recharge mechanisms? 2. What are the sources of salinity? 3. Is there any hydraulic connection between the Quaternary aquifer and the underlying Miocene aquifer, and if so, to what degree? In order to achieve these goals one hundred and one water samples were collected for chemical analysis, and thirty eight samples for the environmental isotopes (18O, 2H and δ 34S and δ 18O (SO4) ) to investigate the origin of the groundwater in the study area, and the different sources