Both energy and availability of water with good quality are essential for the well-being of humans. Thus, it is very important to study the parameters that would affect water quality, so as to come up with mitigation measures if water quality would be at risk or negatively affected. Moreover, it is very important to always search for new energy resources, especially if they are renewable. This research study is concerned with studying solar canals and their effect on evaporation and water quality variables of canals covered by solar cells, as well as the effect on power production. Both a mathematical model and an optimization study were done, in order to determine the previously mentioned effects, and thus, to determine the most favorable covering percentage of the case study canal’s area that would lead to minimum evaporation volumes, maximum power, and yet preserving and meeting the standards of the water quality variables of the covered waterway. Water quality variables that were investigated are dissolved oxygen concentration, algae, nutrients, and pH of the water. It was found that, between 33% and 50% covering of the canal, the optimum conditions will be met.

It is necessary to study the parameters that affect water quality in order to devise mitigation measures if water quality would be at risk or negatively affected by those parameters. Those parameters are physical, chemical, biological, and hydraulic characteristics. This research will study the effect of channel geometry on different water quality variables, which is important in designing new irrigation canals in order to see how its geometry will affect water quality and lessen any negative impact if possible; also this study could aid in designing more reliable waste allocation plans for waterways. The studied geometric characteristics are top width, bottom width, water depth, side-slopes and channel length. Sheikh Zayed canal in Egypt is taken as the reference case study canal. Studied water quality variables are algae, nutrients, total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended solids (TSS), pH, alkalinity and total inorganic carbon. It was found that concentrations of all water quality variables in water changed as a result of changing channel geometry. Some water quality variables such as algae, nutrients, and TSS are greatly affected, whereas others such as pH, alkalinity and total inorganic carbon are slightly affected.

Water is the essence of life; thus preserving enough quantities and good quality of water will elevate the standards of living and health of communities. Egyptian government approved Toshka New Valley project to help deal with the rapidly growing population of the country. The project entails building a series of canals; the main is Sheikh Zayed canal - to irrigate portions of the Western Desert of Egypt. It is expected that the recovered land will become home to three million residents by 2020 and cultivate about 550000 feddans. Toshka is a very arid area with high air temperatures; thus very high evaporation rate; about 3 billion m3/year. Researches showed that in the near future Egypt will face scarcity of water. So saving water from Sheikh Zayed canal by reducing evaporation will provide additional source of water to the area. This research aim is to estimate evaporation rate from the canal and its main branches. Variable configurations and spacing of covering canals were chosen to reduce evaporation and at same time allow for re-aeration and other water quality parameters to meet their standards. It was found that full coverage calculated evaporation amount is about 9 million m3/year which could drip irrigate 35000 feddans of wheat per year which is about 7% of the total area of the land intended to be cultivated in Toshka project.