DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA AND DATA INVENTORY - Integrating GIS, Remote Sensing, and Mathematical Modelling for Surface Water Quality Management - page 104

monitoring network. Records for water levels and piezometric heads are available in the database of
the Groundwater Research Institute (GWRI), National Water Research Center (NWRC) of Egypt.

B. Meteorological Datasets

Several meteorological datasets are needed as basic inputs into the hydrodynamic and water quality
models. The data sets needed for this purpose are: wind directions and velocities , temperature, relative
humidity, solar radiation and evaporation rates. Due to the important effect of wind on the
hydrodynamics of the lake system, the hourly wind directions and velocities are collected. The
detailed analysis of wind data in the study catchment is shown in the chapter hydrodynamic modelling
the wind data sets were collected from meteorological station of Alexandria sea port, which is the
nearest station to the study area location. The data sets cover the period of two years (2005-2006) for
identification of average wind characteristics in the study area. For the hydrodynamic model the data
from January up to End of July, 2006 is used. The air temperature was also collected for the same
period of two years. Relative humidity, average solar radiation and evaporation rates monthly average
data were collected from the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (EMA) for the years 2005-2006.

C. Water Quality Datasets
The water quality datasets for the monitoring stations in the drainage catchment were collected from
the database of the Drainage research Institute (DRI) and the Central Laboratories of Environmental
Quality Monitoring (CLEQM) of the NWRC of Egypt. The data sets include average monthly records
from the year 2000 until 2006. The available data on water quality of the drainage network include
physicochemical, major anions and cations, trace metals and microbiological parameters. No water
quality data or measures were available for the lake area and that was a main reason for the need of
field work to collect water samples from the lake for the implementation of research work. A detailed
map of the different locations of the monitoring stations is shown in the coming section.

D. Digital Maps and GIS layers

The topographic base maps covering the watershed area were collected, having a scale of 1:50000, and
the main needed GIS layers were digitized from these maps. The GIS layers are projected according to
the UTM projection coordinates for the study area (UTM, WGS-1984, Zone: North36), this is the
same projection for all the spatial data used in this research work. The basic GIS layers include the
following:

Western Delta boundaries

Cities and villages

Mediterranean Sea

Lake boundaries

Nile Rosetta Branch

Vegetation areas

Main Study area boundaries

Fisheries areas

Irrigation network

Pumping stations

Drainage network

Wastewater treatment plants

Agricultural lands

Industries

Other specific GIS layers are developed from processing of collected data through field work
missions. These layers include the following:

Lake Bathymetry raw data Spectral measurements locations

Water depth developed grid layers Water levels measurements

Water quality sampling locations Measured discharges locations