The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer in the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev Desert

Abstract

A huge amount of groundwater, estimated to be hundreds of billions of cubic meters of freshwater to brackish water, is found in the Mesozoic Nubian sandstones of the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev Desert. The first hypotheses for the existence of a regional aquifer were raised back in the 1940s, with observations from steady-flow springs, not affected by annual changes in precipitation, located at the margins of the Gulf of Suez and south of the Dead Sea (Issar 1985;Shiftan 1958). This finding led researchers to postulate that these springs are fed by a regional aquifer that stretches underneath the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev Desert (defined hereafter as the "Sinai-Negev Basin"). The first practical evidence for the existence of this groundwater reservoir was found during oil drillings in central Sinai and in the northeastern Negev (Aharoni 1966;Issar et al. 1972).Although separated today by an international boundary, the Sinai-Negev Basin (Fig. 1) constitutes one tectonic unit, which has been partly separated from the This chapter is dedicated to Prof. Arie S. Issar, a researcher, hydrogeologist and among the pioneers who discovered and assessed the enormous hidden groundwater potential in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer under the Sinai-Negev deserts. His numerous and thorough hydrogeological researches revealed, tier upon tier, the secrets of the groundwater in the aquifer. These paved the road for the development of agriculture and industries in the Negev and the Arava Valley to this very day.