Assessment of soil subsidence due to long-term dewatering, Esna city, Egypt

ABSTRACT In Egypt, most of the residential areas lay on cohesive soil (clay) in the Nile valley and Delta and comprises of extensive irrigation network. Several regulators and barrages are located on the irrigation network. One of the sides effects of these regulators is the rising of water levels in the upstream causing the groundwater levels rising in the residential areas. The dewatering process becomes urgent in such areas to prevent the buildings from deterioration. Dewatering process causes an increase in effective stress and consolidation settlement. Esna city was selected to be the area of interest. This area has suffered from groundwater rising since the construction of the new Esna barrage in 1995 and due to the high surface water levels of some irrigation canals such as Ramady canal. The objective of this research is to assess the impact of different operating scenarios on soil subsidence and groundwater, and reaching the optimum scenario. Two maps were interpolated for the expected subsidence and desirable water levels from the most suitable scenario