Study of Lowlands Drainage Problems, Case Study Kamal El-Den Hessen Reclaimed Area, North Sinai, Egypt

This paper deals mainly to study and solve field drainage problems in Kamal El-Den Hessen new reclaimed area (1650 hectares), North Sinai Egypt, where many farmers complain about the formation of water ponds in their lands, bad soil drainage, soil salinity, and low yields rate. Intensive field investigations were carried out regarding, topographic survey, digging 22 boreholes, instilling observation wells, measuring groundwater salinity and assessing the existing drainage network. The results showed that ground surface levels were ranging from 1.5 m to 4.28 m above mean sea level, predominated soil was sandy with a permeability coefficient ranged from 0.82 to 2.68 m/day, an impervious clay layer lies at 6.0 to 7.0 m below ground surface, and the groundwater salinity ranges from 4 to 12 dS/m high salinity for water ponds were observed at the observation wells that lay in the lift side of Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal. Lands surrounding Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal have high levels. The measured groundwater depths of the western observation wells were 0.50 m below ground surface and in the eastern wells ranging from 1.0 to 1.50 m. The analysis of results showed that field drainage problems that increased groundwater levels were: 1) infiltration water coming from the high-cultivated areas at the lift bank of Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal, 2) the impervious clay layers increasing the horizontal infiltration towards low lands and increase ponds areas. 3) Main Gelbana Drain cross-section needs dredging. It is recommended to dredge the Main Gelbana Drain and modified its cross-section to collect water from water ponds, filling the lowland areas utilizing sandy soil in the high lands, adopting types of crops grown to match with crop salt tolerant levels and soil and water salinity levels and constructing subsurface drainage network to decrease groundwater levels.


Introduction
The shortage of water resources forces many countries like Egypt to reuse agriculture drainage water of good quality in irrigation or to mix it with Nile fresh water to improve its quality to utilize in the cultivation of newly reclaimed areas [1]. In the long run, the low-quality irrigation water causes the rising of drainage problems and soil salinity [2] [3]. New land reclamation projects that lie in arid and semi-arid regions, usually the groundwater level is deep and the drainage network did not impalement coincidence with irrigation network to compact the project cost. After the operation of the project, the drainage problems such as increasing soil salinity, waterlogging, and rising groundwater table to the effective root zone was raised. Therefore, drainage should be practiced in parallel with irrigation to make sure maximum yields and for environmental safety in all irrigation projects [4] [5] [6]. Drainage problems dealt with impermeable soils, the high water table in depression areas, and side hill seepage [7]. To discuss drainage, separation has to be made between drainage of groundwater and drainage of surface water. Groundwater drainage helps to control soil salinity for irrigated lands [8]. The surface drainage may also be required to remove excess rainfall or increase irrigation water, especially for soil with low leakage rates [9] [10] [11]. Surface drainage is also needed if rice is grown. Shallow surface drains can also be used to filter salts. For example, with ditches, only 0.4 m deep, farmers in Egypt have managed to tame their new saline land. If rice is grown, alternately with dry foot crops, such as the old lands of the River Nile Delta, such as subsurface drainage required to control the groundwater of non-rice crops and to mitigate the risk of extreme percolation losses in periods that rice is grown [10] [12]. The solution worked out in Egypt is to grow rice in drainage units by backing up a device close to the drainage outlet for the water table control. The drainage of groundwater through horizontal water drainage can be adopted by pumping vertical wells in case of a permeable aquifer. The groundwater is often saline in arid lowlands, and often the salinity is increased with depth. Deep vertical drainage wells will produce highly saline water weak for re-use and difficult to dispose of [13] [14]. Impermeable soils, silty/clayey soil texture with flat topography and poor infiltration are classified as rates impermeable soils [15]. Depression areas can be defined as low wet areas where a significant amount of water ponds after rainfalls, there is no deep percolation obtainable for the surplus water. If the water ponds greater than 3 m in diameter or greater than 10 cm deep, then the problem should be treated as a depression area [16], installation of boreholes and observation wells are essentially for analyzing the soils and studying the water table depths over time. Side bank seepage can arise where a relatively permeable soil (sandy) overlies a relatively impermeable soil (silt/clay) on a slope. Excess water percolates into the sandy soil at high elevations. In clay soil, it cannot stay downwards and it is forced to move horizontally and to seep out where the sand layer ends. Sidehill seepage can also occur where clay soils have been reworked into banks or hills by machinery [17] [18] [19]. There will be large voids left in the disturbed clay since it is essentially impossible to re-compact it to its original state.

M. Gabr Journal of Water Resource and Protection
These large voids ratio will permit the water to move freely into the disturbed profile. This type of drainage problem can produce enough water to preserve a wide flat fairway, neighboring to the slope, very wet. This research deals mainly to identify and investigate the field drainage problems of Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal new reclaimed area (1650 hectares) at the North of Sinai, Egypt, where many farmers complain about the formation of water ponds in their lands, bad soil drainage, and low yields rate. As well as recommend the appropriate solutions.

Materials
Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal region, North Sinai Egypt was selected to be a study  Wheat, sugar beet and corn are the major crops grown in the study area, besides vegetables, and fruits.

Methods
Eight infiltration paths were selected based on land topography, existing water ponds and irrigation canal (Kamal El-Den Hessen Canal). Twenty-two boreholes were carried out to describe land topography, soil permeability, groundwater levels and directions. Figure 3 shows the suggested infiltration paths, location of boreholes and the ground water observation wells distribution. Coordinates of the selected boreholes and groundwater observation wells for the infiltration paths coordinates were shown in Table 1. Topographic survey for the study area    above mean sea level. A 22 soil classification and permeability tests were carried out [21], the results showed that, the predominate soil is sand (Table 2), measured coefficients of permeability was ranging from 0.82 m/day to 2.68 m/day as shown in Table 3. Average surface groundwater levels during the period from May 2013 to December 2013 were presented in Table 4, the groundwater depth was ranging from 0.1 m to 2.42 m, and Figure 5 shows the average groundwater levels.
A four deep groundwater monitoring wells (D1, D2, D3, and D4) of a depth of 9.0 m were implemented to monitor the depth and direction of the deep groundwater, the location of wells were selected near the surface groundwater well numbers A1, B9, C16, and D23, respectively, Table 5 shows deep and surface groundwater levels during the period (October 2013 to December 2013). The water quality of the infiltration water in terms of salinity was measured based on [22]; Table 6 shows measured average groundwater electric conductivity (EC) in dS/m for the observation wells during the period from March 2013 to January 2014).

Results and Discussion
The results obtained from 22 boreholes soil samples (    locations D20 and C16 water ponds have existed, (Table 4 and

Conclusion and Recommendations
Many farmers complain about the formation of water ponds in their lands, bad soil drainage, and low yields rate in the Kamal El-Den Hessen new reclaimed area (1650 hectares) lies at the North Sinai Egypt. The study concluded that constant monitoring of soil permeability, salinity, irrigation water, groundwater levels, and groundwater salinity levels in the newly reclaimed lands is a good indi- and constructing subsurface drainage network to decrease groundwater levels.