Chemical Quality and Hydrogeological Settings of the El-Farafra Oasis (Western Desert of Egypt) Groundwater Resources in Relation to Human Uses

In the Egyptian deserts, new land reclamation projects have been recently established to meet increasing-population growth rate and food demand. These mainly depend on different groundwater aquifers. El-Farafra Oasis is one of “1.5-million-feddan project” areas in Western Desert Egypt where only available water source world’s largest fossil freshwater reservoir “the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS)”. Groundwater-dependent springs, their artificial counterpart “drilled wells”, are reliable systems throughout world. present study, hydrochemical parameters were collected 2015 from 16 springs wells Oasis, analyzed using quality indices. The calculated index (WQI), its correlations with Gibbs, Piper, US Salinity-Lab Staff Wilcox diagrams, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) used evaluate suitability for human drinking irrigation purposes. WQI values revealed good-to-excellent drinking. addition, spring well samples investigated showed good indices activities. Gibbs Piper’s diagrams presented, most falling into rock-dominance category, belonging hydrogeochemical facies determining following types: Mg(HCO3)2 type (37.5% samples), no dominant ions (mixed water-type category; Ca/MgCl2) (50% and, finally, NaCl (the remaining 12.5%). chemistry study area controlled by rock-water interactions, particularly dissolution carbonate rocks silicate weathering. elevated nutrient concentrations, particular nitrates, likely due agricultural activities, indicating substantial anthropogenic activities studied.