Investing in searching for water is far more precious and valuable than investing in tourist resorts," said Dr. Essam Hegy, a leading Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "I’m proud of the Kuwaiti interest in investing in science and education. The scientists and researchers here are really expending great efforts in a real job that will benefit people.
Speaking during a symposium held at the Kuwait Journalists’ Association (KJA) headquarters on Monday, the distinguished scientist explained that a joint program between NASA and the Kuwaiti government, the first such initiative of its kind in the Middle East, led to the NASA-led team using radar-sounding equipment originally developed to explore the subsurface area of Mars to create high resolution maps of freshwater aquifers buried deep beneath a terrestrial desert in the first such aquifer mapping projec
t of its kind globally.
This research may help scientists to better locate and map the Earth’s desert aquifers, understand current and past hydrological conditions in these areas and assess how climate change is affecting them," he explained. "The cost of this project is $167.2 million. Of this amount, NASA’s budget is $60 million and the rest will be paid by Kuwait to participate in producing part of the radar equipment and to establish an Information Reception Center, which will be located in Kuwait.
Approximately one-fifth of the Earth’s land surface is covered by desert, including heavily populated areas in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, West and Central Asia and the Southwestern United States, Dr. Hegy pointed out.
The team of NASA experts led by the eminent scientist recently travelled to North Kuwait to map the depth and extent of aquifers in the arid local environment using a cutting edge airborne radar-sounding prototype device. The 40-Megahertz low-frequency device was provided by the California Institute of Technology (CIT) in Pasadena and the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, France, he explained.
During the research trip, Dr. Hegy and the NASA team were joined by personnel from the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research (KISR). The study was co-founded by the CIT’s Keck Institute for Space Studies and the KISR, with the Kuwaiti Police Air Force providing technical support for the flight tests.
For two weeks, the team flew the helicopter equipped with the radar device on 12 low-altitude passes (1,000 feet, or 305 meters) over two well-known freshwater aquifers, probing the desert subsurface area down to the water table level at depths ranging from 66 to 213 feet (20 to 65 meters). The researchers successfully demonstrated that the radar could locate subsurface aquifers, determine variations in the depth of the water table, and identify locations where water flowed into and out of the aquifers.
The radar device is sensitive to changes in electrical characteristics of subsurface rock, sediments and water-saturated soils. Water-saturated zones are highly reflective and mirror the low-frequency radar signal.
The returned radar echoes indicated the thick mixture of gravel, sand and silt that covers most of Kuwait’s northern desert and lies above its water table. The team created high-resolution cross-sections of the subsurface area, showing variations in the fresh groundwater table in the two aquifers studied. The radar results were validated by ground measurements performed by KISR.
This research will help scientists better understand Earth’s fossil aquifer systems, the approximate number, occurrence and distribution of which remain largely unknown," explained Dr. Hegy. "Much of the evidence for climate change in Earth’s deserts lies beneath the surface and is reflected in its groundwater. By mapping desert aquifers with this technology, we can detect layers deposited by ancient geological processes and trace back paleoclimatic conditions that existed thousands of years ago, when ma
ny of today’s deserts were wet.
The globally renowned scientist explained that the most recent observations, scientific studies and data analyses into global warming have concentrated on Earth’s polar regions and forests, which provide direct measurable evidence of large-scale environmental changes, whilst the arid and semi-arid environments, which represent a substantial portion of Earth’s surface, have remained poorly studied. He warned, however, that water scarcity and increasing salinity, changes in rainfall patterns, flash floods, h
igh rates of aquifer exploitation and increasing desertification are all signs that suggest climate change and human activities are also affecting these arid and semi-arid zones.
