New light shed on the Nubian Aquifer

The IAEA/UNDP/GEF project on the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) has as its primary objective the development of a four country cooperative strategy for the rational management of this transboundary aquifer system. The NSAS - underlying Egypt, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Chad, and Sudan - is a single, massive reservoir of high quality groundwater, yet has very different characteristics in each country; and each country has different development objectives for the aquifer. An essential first step in developing management strategies for the system is to understand both the transboundary and local effects of recovering water from the aquifer under present rates of withdrawal as well as development scenarios well into the future. This understanding is being gained through development of a numerical model of the aquifer system. The NSAS model had to meet several unique criteria. It had to be conceptually simple to accommodate limited information on aquifer hydrogeology and sparse observations of water levels. The model also had to provide realistic estimates of a very large aquifer spanning approximately two million square kilometres. And perhaps most important, the model had to earn the approval of national coordinators and technical experts from the four participating countries