Abdullah A. Saber. Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

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1 By Abdullah A. Saber Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

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3 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.

4 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, El- Dakhla Oasis and El-Farafra Oasis.

5 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.

6 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.

7 Hydrochemistry of some hot springs called Ain in Arabic and drilled wells: Springs (called Ain in Arabic): ph values 8,5 8 7,5 7 6,5 EC (μs cm -1 ) (EC values ranged between μs cm -1 ) summer 2011 winter 2012 summer 2011 winter 2012

8 ph value Drilled Wells (called Bir in Arabic): 8 7,5 7 6,5 6 5,5 summer 2011 winter 2012

9 EC (μs cm -1 ) Drilled Wells (called Bir in Arabic): 800 (EC values ranged between μs cm -1 ) summer 2011 winter 2012

10 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

11 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".

12 Results and Outlook Cultivation and isolation of some different soil edaphic algal strains from the Oasis.

13 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.

14 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).

15 Personal Dream

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