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Regional Gravity Field Model of Egypt Based on Satellite and Terrestrial Data

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Abstract

This study presents a recent combined regional gravity field model over Egypt, developed by integrating satellite and terrestrial data via applying the remove-compute-restore (RCR) principle and the least-squares collocation (LSC) procedure. A high-resolution digital terrain model was exploited for the computation of the terrain and residual terrain corrections. Hereby, all the signals that can be modelled or deterministically computed are considered known and then removed in order to reduce the order of magnitude of the input gravity data prior to applying the LSC. Several GOCE-only and combined global geopotential models (GGMs) have been thoroughly investigated with respect to the EGM2008, in which the space-wise (SPW) solution, namely the SPW-R5 model, demonstrated the best performance. For the development of the combined model, the SPW-R5 GGM has been integrated with both the EGM2008 GGM and the terrestrial data retrieved from 56,250 gravity stations of the Getech data, acquired in the framework of the African Gravity Project. The combined regional gravity model was compared to the state-of-art XGM2016 global gravity model. The standard deviation of the differences is 18.0 mGal in terms of Bouguer anomalies. The combined regional model fits well with the terrestrial gravity data along the chosen North–South oriented profile through the Nile Delta region. The improvements of the developed combined regional model over the XGM2016 are due to the use of a more extensive terrestrial dataset. In conclusion, our model is more suitable than solely using the ground data or GGMs for regional density modelling over Egypt. As an example, the comparison of using a global or regionally defined gravity model with the forward gravity modelling based on Saleh (Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica 47(4):402–429, 2012) density model is performed.

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Acknowledgements

The present work has been supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). We would like to thank Basem Elsaka (University of Bonn, Germany) for the helpful discussion. The authors also would like to thank Getech UK for providing the terrestrial gravity data over Egypt. The spatial representations of the results have been plotted using the GMT5 (Generic Mapping Tools) software (Wessel et al. 2013). The spherical harmonic syntheses have been computed using the GEOEGM module of the GRAVSOFT software (Tscherning et al. 1992).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geosciences, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel, Otto-Hahn-Platz 1, 24118, Kiel, Germany

    Mohamed Sobh & Jörg Ebbing

  2. Geodynamics Department, National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Helwan, Cairo, 11421, Egypt

    Mohamed Sobh

  3. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Pisa, Via U. della Faggiola 32, 56126, Pisa, PI, Italy

    Ahmed Hamdi Mansi

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan, Italy

    Ahmed Hamdi Mansi

  5. Gravity and Magnetic solutions, Getech UK, Kitson House, Elmete Hall, Elmete Lane, Leeds, LS8 2LJ, UK

    Simon Campbell

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Sobh, M., Mansi, A.H., Campbell, S. et al. Regional Gravity Field Model of Egypt Based on Satellite and Terrestrial Data. Pure Appl. Geophys. 176, 767–786 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-018-1982-y

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