ROSETTA BRANCH Water Way Dredging for Navigation Sustainability

Farouk, Elzahry; Elsersawy, Hossam; Mohamed, Motaz; Badawi, Nevine

doi:10.21608/erjsh.2023.222665.1189

ROSETTA BRANCH Water Way Dredging for Navigation Sustainability

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

¹ Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at Shoubra, Benha University, Cairo, Egypt

² Nile Research Institute (NRI), National Water Research Center (NWRC), El-Qanater El-Khairiya, Egypt.

³ Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Cairo, Egypt.

10.21608/erjsh.2023.222665.1189

Abstract

Rivers act as highways for trade and transport before the existence of cars and railroads. The construction of Aswan High Dam in Upper Egypt controlled the flow passing through the Nile River providing consistent flow discharge and making river navigation possible. The main objective is to develop a first-class two-way navigation channel in Rosetta Branch according to the Egyptian River Transport Authority (RTA) recommendations. A 2D numerical model was adopted to study the branch's current condition by analyzing the morphological changes that occurred in the branch during a period of 17 years from the year 2003 to 2020. The results show that Rosetta branch of the Nile River suffers from a severe deposition, which affects river navigation in the current state as the most affected reach suffering from severe deposition appears in the first 80 km of the branch. Dredging operations are required to construct a navigation channel where two navigation channel scenarios were proposed with dredging depths of 2.3m and 3.5m respectively below the minimum water level. It can be concluded that the second scenario managed to provide a safe navigable water depth through the branch despite the dredging cost and the decrease in water levels. It's recommended to study the morphological and environmental impact of dredging operations on Rosetta branch in future research.

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