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This paper investigates the interplay of the hydrogeological characteristics, soil properties and recent land reclamation projects on the distribution of waterlogging and salinisation within the Farafra Oasis. The multi-temporal remote sensing data and field observations show that new reclaimed areas have been recently cultivated in distant areas from the old agricultural land. These new cultivations have developed widespread water logging, seepage channels and soil salinisation. Analyses of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) showed that both old and new agricultural areas are located within same closed drainage basin. The fluvial channels of these catchments, which were developed during wet climatic pluvial have largely been obliterated by the prevailing aridity and often buried under aeolian deposits. However, the new cultivations have been developed on the fingertips of these fluvial channels, while the old fields occupy the low level playas. The soil of the new cultivated areas are mainly lithic with a high calcium carbonate content, thus limiting the downward percolation of excess irrigation water and therefore develop perched water table and seepage through the paleo-channels. The automatically extract drainage networks from DEM are resembling fluvial patterns and coincide with the seepage channels slowly heading toward old cultivation. The inactive alluvial channels and landforms have to be considered when planning for new cultivation in dryland catchments to better control waterlogging and salinisation hazard. It is highly recommended that newly developed seepage-channels have to be detected and intercepted before reaching old agriculture areas. Therefore, the "dry-drainage" concept can be implemented as the seepage water can be conveyed into a nearby playas reserved for evaporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shallow aquifer mapping and large-scale characterization of groundwater dynamics in the Saharan-Arabian Desert is largely impeded by the limited hydrological datasets from sparse and unevenly distributed well logs. Today, as these aquifers are depleting at alarming rates in response to climatic and anthropogenic stresses, accurate knowledge of their dynamical characteristics is not only essential for understanding the water deficit in these increasingly populated areas but also to understand the regional and global environmental impacts of such changes. Herein, we suggest that groundwater mounding can be used for assessing aquifer connectivity in hyper-arid deserts. Using the shallow Post Nubian Aquifer System (PNAS) in Egypt as a test site, we integrate remote sensing, isotopic, hydrochemical and geoelectrical methods to characterize the Saharan groundwater mounds, examine the structural control on groundwater dynamics and discuss the potential of future satellite missions to characterize aquifer connectivity. The results suggest that groundwater mounding in the PNAS is attributed to artesian discharge of the deep Nubian Aquifer System (NAS) along the intersection of WNW and E-W major faults. This is evident by the dominant isotopic signature (δ 18 O: -9.93‰; δ 2 H: -79.05) of the deep NAS in the shallow PNAS with a percentage of up to 85% in the faulted zone. The 2D-Electrical Restively Imaging (ERI) delineate multiple small-scale mounds, atop of faults, that can attain 37 m height above average water table creating a relatively steep hydraulic gradient and deviating the groundwater flow direction. Future orbital radar sounding missions can benefit from characterizing the geometry of these mounds to define the measurement requirements of such hydrological features. The large-scale time-coherent subsurface mapping of the Saharan-Arabian aquifers can provide unique insights to examine the aquifer connectivity and the response of aquifers to climatic and anthropogenic stresses in desert areas that otherwise cannot be addressed using existing sporadic well-logs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)