New project explores harvest of flash flood water

Energy Sunday 08/December/2019 23:17 PM
By: Times News Service
New project explores harvest of flash flood water

Halban: Due to arid and semi-arid climate Oman is facing shortage of water. Therefore, it is important to capture water from floods before it finally discharges into the sea or evaporates.
Unfortunately, every year Oman loses 120 million cubic metres of fresh water flows 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.
He is the professor for Hydrogeology at German University of Technology (GUtech) and 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 in width and depth.
“An artificial flood is created by injecting water from a tanker and several hi-tech sensors are installed in the soil and in the flowing water to estimate the amount of water, which infiltrates into the ground and partially evaporates before reaching the deeper lying groundwater reservoir (aquifer),” said Prof. Holzbecher.