ANN-Based Approach to Predict Changes
in Ground Water Levels as a Result
of Constructing New Naga-Hammadi
Barrage, Egypt
Ahmed S. Noureldeen, Shenouda Ghaly, Kamal Ali, and Gamal Abozaid



Keywords
ANN Ground water
1 Introduction
The increase of Ground Water Levels (GWL) is an important
issue that should be taken into consideration by the
responsibles for water resources managements. Monitoring
of Ground Water Levels changes due to man-made struc-
tures (particularly, barrage construction on rivers) in Egypt is
considered one of the main sources for the integrated water
resource management implementation plan in this country.
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are widely used in
monitoring the ground water variations. The increase of
Ground Water Levels has a bad effect on the buildings,
quality of surrounding soil, and thus the growing of crops.
Many researchers concentrated on predicting the variations
in the GWL in different parts of the worlds [e.g. (Bessaih
et al. 2014), (Raval and Parekh 2015), (Sethi et al. 2010),
(Hamed et al. 2015), (Daliakopoulos et al. 2005), (Nair and
Sindhu 2016), (Xiaomin et al. 2002) and (Rakhshandehroo
et al. 2012)]. The main target of this research is to monitor
the ground water levels changes via predicting the spatial
distribution of the ground water levels in the most effective
piezometers in between the new and old Naga-Hammadi
barrage (the study area) due to the construction of the new
A. S. Noureldeen (&)
S. Ghaly
K. Ali
Civil Engineering Department, Aswan University, Aswan, Egypt
e-mail: eng.ahmed.s.nour@gmail.com
S. Ghaly
e-mail: eng_noda@yahoo.com
K. Ali
e-mail: kamalabbas90@yahoo.com
G. Abozaid
Civil Engineering Department, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
e-mail: gamal.abozaid@eng.au.edu.eg
© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
A. Kallel et al. (eds.), Recent Advances in Environmental Science from the Euro-Mediterranean and Surrounding Regions,
Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70548-4_250



Prediction Spatial distribution Barrage
one. Then the impacts of these changes on the study area
were detected.
2 Materials and Methods
The data collected in this study represent all data about the
GWL before and after New Naga Hammadi barrage con-
struction. The map of the study area is shown in Fig. 1.
To reach the target of the present study, an Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) model is formulated and pro-
grammed, using Back propagation technique. The method-
ology of the current study is folded into two categories, the
first is to build an ANN model using the data before con-
structing the new Naga-Hammadi barrage. This model is
then used to predict the ground water levels after the con-
struction of the new barrage in order to detect the variations
in the ground water levels (the second category). The flow
chart of the program algorithm is shown in Fig. 2. The first
step in the program is to set its parameters such as learning
rate (Lr), momentum constant (Mc), and number of neurons
(N). Then the program reads the input data and divides them
into three parts for training, testing and validation. If the
maximum allowed tolerance or the number of iterations are
achieved, the output is then computed.
3 Results and Discussion
Firstly, the ANN model is calibrated and verificated using
the obtained data before barrage construction. It is found that
there is an acceptable agreement between observed and
estimated GWL in the chosen piezometers in the study
area (minimum correlation coefficient is about 0.97 and
853
854 A. S. Noureldeen et al.

Fig. 1 Location map of the study area in Egypt

Start

ANN Model Settings

Input Data

Compute Tolerance

No Tolerance> 1e-50
or
No. Iterations ==1000

Yes

Output Data

Exit

Fig. 2 Flowchart of the applied model in the current study

ANN-Based Approach to Predict Changes in Ground … 855

Fig. 3 Correlation between observed and predicted GWL before barrage construction

maximum root mean square error equal 7 mm). Figure 3
shows the calibration process results for piezometers (Pa1,
Pb1 and Pc12). Secondly, Confident with the obtained
results, the model is then used to predict the ground water
levels after barrage construction in order to estimate the
ground water level variations in the study area.
Finally, the spatial distribution map of the study area
GWL after barrage construction, at maximum water level in
River Nile of 65.90 m (a.m.s.l), is generated and presented in
Fig. 4. Comparing Fig. 5 that indicate the GL of the study
area to Fig. 4 and according to Table 1, it is observed that
most of the study area is submerged with the ground water

Fig. 4 Spatial distribution map of GWL area Fig. 5 Spatial distribution map of GL for study after barrage construction
856 A. S. Noureldeen et al.

Table 1 Comparison between the GL and GWL for samples of the References
chosen piezometers
Piezometer Ground levels, Ground water levels, Bessaih N, Qureshi M, Al-Jabri FS, Al-Harmali IR, Al Naamani ZA.
GL (m) GWL (m) Groundwater water level prediction in Wadi el Jezzy Catchment
PA1 66.94 67.16 using ANN. In: Proceedings of the world congress on engineering;
2014. vol. 1.
PB1 67.02 66.87
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PC12 66.10 66.16 forecasting using artificial neural networks. J Hydrol. 2005;309(1):
229–40.
Hamed Y, Elkiki M, Al Gahtani OS. Prediction of future groundwater
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study). Int Water Technol J IWTJ. 2015;5(2):149–62.
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about 1 m in average compared to the GWL before barrage Neural Network. Int J Sci Res Publ. 2016;6(1):2250–3153.
construction. The water reserve behind the new barrage was Rakhshandehroo GR, Vaghefi M, Aghbolaghi MA. Forecasting
the main cause for GWL increase in the study area. groundwater level in Shiraz plain using artificial neural networks.
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This study presents and discusses the spatial distribution Sethi RR, Kumar A, Sharma SP, Verma HC. Prediction of water table
prediction of the Ground Water Levels due to New depth in a hard rock basin by using artificial neural network. Int J
Naga-Hammadi barrage construction, Egypt by using an Water Resour Environ Eng. 2010;2(4):95–102.
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the GWL in the study area were increased by about 1 m,
this led to submerge most of the study area with ground
water. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the use of
ANN models can help to monitor ground water level
changes due to man-made structures.