The countries on the Arabian Peninsula suffer from water scarcity. Because there are no permanent natural rivers and only little recharge, large parts of the subcontinent rely on fossil groundwater for public water supply and agriculture. Aiming at a better understanding of the hydrogeology of the region, we apply a range of methods (mainly modelling well as hydrochemical and isotope techniques) to study the key components of the water cycle.
Our work addressed, for instance, precipitation, particularly its chemical and isotopic composition (Michelsen et al. 2015) and the unsaturated zone. Here, we studied groundwater recharge through sand dunes (Pfletschinger et al. 2012, 2014) and in karst areas (Schulz et al. 2016), partly with unconventional techniques (Michelsen et al. 2016).
Moreover, we investigated principle aquifers of the Lower and the Upper Mega Aquifer System (Al-Ajmi et al. 2014, Rausch et al. 2014, Schulz et al. 2017). While the mentioned publications largely focused on groundwater quantities, ongoing work deals water quality aspects (including natural groundwater radioactivity) and mean residence times.
In addition, groundwater discharge in salt pan areas was studied through a combination of remote sensing, field work, and column experiments in the laboratory (Schulz et al. 2015).
During our activities on the Arabian Peninsula, we received substantial support by our cooperation partners – the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA), the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and Dornier Consulting.
Country, Continent: Arabian Peninsula, mainly Saudi Arabia
Funding agency: BMBF (IPSWaT, IWAS)
Years of activity: 2012 -…
Responsible persons: Nils Michelsen, Stephan Schulz, Randolf Rausch, Christoph Schüth
