Effect of Changing the Effluent Path of Omar-Bek Drain on the Damietta Branch Water Quality

Abstract

The Omar-Bek drain, which represents the main source of water pollution along the Damietta branch of the Nile River, receives about 600,000 m 3 (158,503,200 gallons) daily of untreated domestic, agricultural, and industrial wastes. The main purpose of this research consisted of investigating alternatives of managing water quality at the Damietta branch; a comparison was conducted between the current situation and two proposed scenarios. The first scenario involved changing the effluent path of the Omar-Bek drain to another drain is called “Main Western drain”. The second scenario centered around improving water quality at the Omar-Bek drain by constructing a WWTP with a design capacity of more than 150,000 m 3 /day (39,625,800 gallons) and by improving water quality at this drain by increasing the efficiency of WWTPs that discharged daily about 60,000 m 3 (15,850,300 gallons) of partially treated wastewater to the drain. The current situation and the two proposed scenarios were simulated by using river pollutant (RP) modeling. It was concluded that the Omar-Bek drain has no significant effect on the Damietta branch water quality and that, instead of changing the path of the drain, improving the efficiency of the existing WWTPs discharging to the Omar-Bek drain and preventing the direct discharge of domestic wastewater to the drain will provide the most effective ways of increasing the water quality of the Damietta branch.