ORIGINAL ARTICLE Surface evidences supporting a probable new concept for the river systems evolution in Egypt: a remote sensing overview Abotalib Z. Abotalib • Ramadan S. A. Mohamed Received: 26 March 2012 / Accepted: 12 September 2012 / Published online: 2 October 2012 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012 Abstract Compilation between the previous studies about the river systems evolution and integrating them with the remotely sensed data-based landscape analysis provide a new vision to the river systems evolution in Egypt during the Cenozoic Era. Relics of geomorphologic features left in the old basins related to these rivers suggest the existence of a natural dam between Nag Hammadi City and Wadi El-Assuiti. This barrier was separating two river systems during Late Miocene time: (1) the Qena River System and (2) the newly suggested North Egypt River System. The North Egypt River is supposed to be started by the Wadi El-Assuiti drainage basin, which flowed first in a westward direction, from its source in the Eastern Limestone Plateau to continue in a northward direction across the Nile Canyon (along the course of the Nile) to join the drainage system of Wadi Tarfa and Wadi Sannur and to end, finally, in the depression of Wadi El-Natrun to constitute the Wadi El-Natrun Miocene Delta. The present interpretation on the existence of a North Egypt River System, with the presence of an old natural dam to the south of Nag Hammadi City, necessitates a revision of the concepts used for ground- water exploration in Upper Egypt. Keywords Remote sensing Á River systems Á Landscape analysis Á North Egypt River Introduction Egyptians have always given an appreciable share of their interests to the Nile River. This is because the Egyptian society and civilization started around the Nile valley and was always sustained by the water of this river since the middle of the fifth millennium BC when arid to semi-arid conditions prevailed on the Egyptian lands (Kropelin 1993). This gradual climatic change from the humid con- ditions during Late Eocene/Oligocene to the present hyperarid climate was regarded as a result of the northward drift of Africa in space and time (Abdelkareem et al. 2012). Actually the country is witnessing a dramatic increase in population and has an urgent need of urban and agricultural development. The waters of the river reaching Egypt may face in the near future appreciable decreases, as many Nile Basin countries, situated in the south, on the upstream parts of the river, are building or intend to build dams on the river to store water or to generate hydroelectric power plants. Flowing for about 6,695 km from Equatorial Africa through the Sahara, which is the largest desert in the world, the Nile River has supplied precious water to human civ- ilizations for thousands of years. The Nile River in Egypt (Fig. 1) runs in a South–North direction for a distance of about 1,150 km between the Sudanese borders and Cairo, then it splits into two branches: the Rosetta branch to the west and the Damietta branch to the east. In spite of the fact that the Nile River is the ‘‘River of Life’’ for Egypt, few studies were published on the evolution of the Egyptian part of the Nile basin during the Cenozoic. Exceptions to this are studies related to the river system of the Eastern Sahara, which can be regarded as a separate system that drained northward from the north highlands situated in Sudan, Libya, Chad and the Uweinat heights during ancient A. Z. Abotalib (&) Geoscience Department, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA e-mail: abotalibzakia.farag@wmich.edu R. S. A. Mohamed Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Minia University, El-Minia, Egypt 123 Environ Earth Sci (2013) 69:1621–1635 DOI 10.1007/s12665-012-1998-z