1.1. Topography

The topography of Kuwait is generally flat, with a gentle rise from sea level at the coast to an elevation of about 270 m in the southwest corner of the country (Figure 1). Local relief is low except in the Jal-Az-Zor escarpment, the Ahmadi Ridge, the Wara Hill, and the Wadi Al-Batin [1]. The Jal-Az-Zor escarpment, about 60 km in length and 145 m in height above MSL, borders the northwestern shore of Kuwait Bay. It trends from Al-Atraf southwest to Bahra northeast. The Ahmadi Ridge parallels to the coastline south of Kuwait City and rises to a height of 137 m above MSL. The east and west slopes of the ridge are very gentle. Another elevation is the Wara Hill, located southeastern Kuwait and has a local relief of about 31 m. The Wadi Al-Batin is a major and shallow depression marking the western boundary of the country for a distance of 75 km with an average width of 6–8 km. The central part of Kuwait and the Neutral Zone are featureless with few wadis and little vegetation. Furthermore, small and shallow depressions exist throughout the northern, western, and central areas. The northern and the western parts of the country have a dense drainage pattern of small and shallow wadi systems, draining northeast toward the Iraq border and toward the shallow depressions near Al-Rawdhatain [2].

the Kuwait Group and the Hasa Group. The Mesozoic (Late Cretaceous) sediments are characterized by carbonate rocks [3]. A generalized lithostratigraphic subdivisions of Tertiary-Quaternary sediments in Kuwait with the groundwater conditions [4] is summarized and

Hydrogeology and Groundwater Geochemistry of the Clastic Aquifer and Its Assessment for Irrigation, Southwest…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71577

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Figure 1. The topographic and the dominant northeast drainage patterns of Kuwait.

The Kuwait Group consists of sand, gravel, sandstone, clay, silt, calcareous and gypseous cemented sandstones, and marl covering the entire surface of Kuwait and extending down to the top of the underlying Dammam Formation. The thickness of the Kuwait Group increases from 150 m in the southwest to about 400 m in the northeast. The Kuwait Group is relatively

discussed below.

1.3. The Kuwait Group
