By
Abdullah A. Saber
Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
([email protected])
 Egypt are likely to experience
increasing multiple pressures in
the future as a result of:
I. very
high
predicted
population growth.
II. industrial development.
III. land use change.
IV. Finally building of some
dams on the main branches
of River Nile controlling and
negatively affecting River
Nile-Egyptian
water
amount.
 The New Valley Governorate
“or El Wadi El Gedid” is the
largest governorate in Egypt.
 It is stretched for about
440,098 km² in the Western
Desert (about 44% of the
total area of Egypt and ca.
66% of the Western Desert).
 It
comprises three main
oases; El-Kharga Oasis, ElDakhla Oasis and El-Farafra
Oasis.
 The Western Desert contains an extensive aquifer system with
high potentialities of renewable fresh groundwater nominated
as The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System.
 This aquifer represents the sole resource of freshwater in the
Western Desert.
 El-Farafra Oasis is one of the aforementioned oases that
occupies the heart of the Egyptian Western Desert.
 Special interest was given to this Oasis because it is my Ph.D.
study area and didn’t been studied before very well
hydrologically and phycologically.
 In El-Farafra Oasis, The principle head source of urban,
irrigation and domestic purposes is the water naturally flowing
from thermal springs or drilled wells “pumping water
continuously without any control”.
 This type of irrigation is carried out through a peculiar system
of side channels specially designed to cope with mechanism of
supply of water.
Hydrochemistry of some hot springs “called Ain in Arabic” and
drilled wells:
Springs (called Ain in Arabic):
EC (μS cm-1 )
(EC values ranged between 219953 μS cm-1 )
pH values
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
8,5
8
7,5
7
6,5
summer 2011
winter 2012
summer 2011
winter 2012
 Drilled Wells (called Bir in Arabic):
pH value
8
7,5
7
6,5
6
5,5
summer 2011
winter 2012
 Drilled Wells (called Bir in Arabic):
(EC values ranged between 173.7-756 μS cm-1 )
800
EC (μS cm-1 )
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
summer 2011
winter 2012
The main problem????
Most of this freshwater isn’t under any control
and couldn’t be greatly managed and used
for achieving the best percentage of
irrigation and desert reclamation, but
Seepage into the desert land + water coming
from washing agricultural lands
Leading to formation of waterlogged lands
"wetlands"
So it will be difficult to be easily reclaimed in the
future due to salts accumulation
 So, It is very important to:
1) put the suitable strategies to manage the renewable
underground freshwater in El-Farafra Oasis, especially it
contains a large flat area suitable for reclamation.
2) achieve the best use of water for urban and irrigation
purposes.
3) Finally and in general, reclaim the Western Desert as
possible, to depend on ourselves in food production "selfsufficiency".
Results and Outlook
 Cultivation and isolation of some different soil “edaphic“ algal
strains from the Oasis.
Results and Outlook
 some of the isolated strains are the first time to be recorded in
Egyptian algal flora such as Westiellopsis prolifica Janet. Its
identification is genetically identified by Dr. Marco Cantonati
(MUSE- Trento-Italy)
This taxon is very salt tolerant and is widely used as a
biofertilizer, increasing the yield productivity of some plants
such as wheat.
 Generally, algae are known by its ability to improve the
physico-mechanical features of desert lands by increasing
their water-holding capacity through secretion of many
types of polysaccharides. At the same time, algae could be
easily cultivated under special conditions, producing high
mass growth.
 In lab, we have already started through the next coming
days to apply this strain and others as biofertilizer,
especially on economically-important, non-salt tolerant
plants.
 This trial will be applied on desert soils collected from El-
Farafra Oasis, expecting positive results based on
preliminary tests (positive growth of seeds germination).
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