Wells and land use changes in Dakhla Oasis (Egypt) using geospatial analysis: case study of Rashda village
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(2020) 5:61
ORIGINAL PAPER
Wells and land use changes in Dakhla Oasis (Egypt) using geospatial analysis: case study of Rashda village Erina Iwasaki1 · Salwa Elbeih2 · Adel Shalaby2 · Hossam Khedr2 · El Sayed Zaghloul2 Received: 4 May 2020 / Accepted: 8 September 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract The number of deep groundwater wells in the arid lands of Egypt has increased greatly since the mid-twentieth century. Modern well drilling technology using rotary drilling rigs and pumping tests came to Egypt with the beginning of the New Valley Project in 1958, bringing significantly increased water discharge. Taking Rashda Village in Dakhla Oasis as a case study, this paper documents the expansion of agricultural lands as a result of the development and application of well drilling technologies. The materials used include satellite images from 1968 until 2018, and groundwater well data obtained from field visits and governmental reports. The analysis makes clear that there has been a huge change in land use/cover over the past 50 years (1968–2018) with the largest expansion of agricultural lands occurring between 1988 and 2003 driven by acceleration in well drilling. One of the complex phenomena that appeared is the increase in drainage ponds from 15.6 ha in 1968 to 194.4 ha in 2018 where growth of drainage ponds was correlated with the rapid increase in agricultural lands (1998–2003). In the past two decades, Rashda village has been under continuous pressure from population growth and increasing water demand for agricultural, domestic, industrial, and institutional uses. However, the development has continued without attention to its sustainability. Keywords Western Desert · Well technology · Remote sensing · Land use · GIS · Egypt · Dakhla Oasis
Introduction Egypt is well known for having the Nile River as its primary source of water since the time of its ancient civilization. As such, water issues in Egypt have tended to be concerned primarily with the Nile. However, groundwater resources have attracted the attention of policy-makers and researchers since the late 1950s because they have the potential to complement water resources that are now thought to be insufficient for the growing population. In particular, since the Communicated by Prof. Mohamed Ksibi, co-Editor-in-Chief and Dr. Mohamed Kefi, Guest Editor. This paper was selected from the Tunisia-Japan Symposium on Science, Society and Technology (TJASSST 2019), Sousse, Tunisia. * Erina Iwasaki [email protected] 1
Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan
National Authority of Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS), Cairo, Egypt
2
late 1950s, the Western Desert has interested government and scholars because of the abundant water in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, which is one of the largest aquifers in the world. In 1958, the New Valley Project sought to reclaim the desert and convert it to agricultural lands by exploiting its groundwater. The development of modern drilling technology enabled exploi
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