Geophysical/Geotechnical investigation for earthquake risk mitigation of the strategic and development projects, South Egypt

Abstract
Many strategic and development projects were achieved in southern part of Egypt (e.g.
Aswan High Dam, New Aswan city, New Tushka city, Aswan cement factory, Wadi Kurkur development project). The Aswan High Dam is one of the most important projects of the last century in Egypt. It provides Egypt with water and electricity, and secures the country from the risk of the destructive inundation of the River Nile. After the occurrence of 14 November, 1981 earthquake (Mb 5.6) 60 km southwest Aswan High Dam, Aswan seismic network was installed in Aswan area. The main target of the network is the monitoring of the seismic activity in and around the northern part of Aswan Lake for High Dam stability. Before the construction of Aswan network, there was a lack of the recorded seismic data in southern Egypt. So, after the continues recording from this network since 1982 up to date, a good contribution with a complete catalogue for earthquake hazard assessment in the new development projects became available for southern part of Egypt. For successful assessment and mitigation of earthquake hazards, it is necessary to be able to predict the level of ground shaking which has to be expected from future large earthquakes. Therefore, many geophysical and geotechnical studies were performed in the development project sites during the planning stage using different techniques for site characterization to mitigate the earthquake hazard in these projects. The outputs of these studies are very important for solving the problems, which associated with the construction of various civil engineering purposes, for land use planning and for earthquakes resistant structure design.