Halban: Due to its arid and semi-arid climate the Sultanate of Oman is suffering from scarcity of water. Therefore, it is important to capture water from floods before it discharges into the sea or evaporates.
“Unfortunately, every year Oman loses 120 million m3 of fresh water as runoff to the sea, according to the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources. In order to harvest flood water, around 50 recharge dam were built in Oman,” said Prof Dr Ekkehard Holzbecher, Professor for Hydrogeology at German University of Technology (GUtech), who has been leading a research project on flood management for several years.
In order to measure the rate of infiltrating water, a field experiment is currently operated at the campus of GUtech. The experiment consists of a 100 metre long channel with one metre width and depth.
“An artificial flood is created by injecting water from a tanker. Several hi-tech sensors are installed in the soil and in the flowing water in order to estimate the amount of water, which infiltrates into the ground and which partially evaporates before reaching the deeper lying groundwater reservoir (aquifer). Moreover, the flow rate is measured in the inlet and the outlet of the channel,” said Prof Holzbecher.
The experiment is funded by a GUtech seed grant and supervised by Prof Dr Ekkehard Holzbecher and Dr Ahmed al Hadidi of the Applied Geoscience Department (AGEO) at GUtech. As part of their team project course, fourth year students of the AGEO Department are involved as well.
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