US-Egypt Coopertive Research: Mitigating the Deterioration of Monuments from the Effects of Evaporating Shallow Groundwater

0420777

Parizek

Description: This award is to support cooperative research between a U.S. team headed by Dr. Richard Parizek, Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania and Dr. Abdel Raouf Abul Hassan, Geological Survey of Egypt and Mining Authority, Cairo, Egypt. Shallow groundwater levels, coupled with concentrations of salt, dissolved solids and biological compounds, are causing rapid and significant deterioration or monuments and other structures at numerous locations in Egypt. At Hierakonopolis, a variety of monuments and materials are being degraded. The problem of rapid deterioration has become more acute since the initiation of new irrigation practices in 1995. Year-round flood irrigation of the fields ensures a uniformly high water table

Scope and broad impact: The proposed study will use an integrated combination of geological, geophysical, geochemical and hydrologic methods to develop and validate a flow model for the Hierakonopolis site that can be used to design a practical mitigation plan. If possible, a separate but related set of analyses would be made in the U.S. of the biological compounds that cause discoloration and deterioration of the base of monuments and other structures at locations such as Hierakonopolis, Edfu, and Esna. These and earlier findings, all incorporated into a large GIS database, will be integrated to develop a groundwater flow model and practical mitigation strategies for the Hierakonopolis site. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.