A Comprehensive Analysis of Egypt's Escalating Water Crisis

About 85% of Egypt’s water resources are used for agricultural irrigation systems, which are characterized by high levels of water losses and low efficiency.

The National Water Resources Strategy 2017–2037, which is intended to address Egypt’s water-related challenges over the next 20 years, is expected to cost EGP 900 billion (about $55 billion).

According to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, the national strategy has four pillars:

• Develop water resources (desalination and recycling),
• Enhance water quality,
• Rationalize water use,
• Create an enabling environment.

The amount of wastewater produced in Egypt is about 16.4 BCM, including 4.4 BCM of sewage and 12 BCM of agricultural wastewater. According to the 2030 Strategic Vision of Treated Wastewater Reuse, the Egyptian governorates are divided into two categories with different strategies for each category.

• The first group includes governorates without agricultural expansion plans, which include: Monofia, Dakahlia, Kafr Elsheikh, Gharbia, Kalyoubia, Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said.
• The second group includes the governorates’ future agricultural plans, which include: Giza, Behaira, Minia, Damietta, Sohag, Assuit, Sharkia, Qena, Suez, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Aswan, Ismailia, Luxor, Matrouh, Red Sea, and New Valley.

Opportunities

Water sector development is a priority for the government of Egypt because of:

• High annual population growth (2.5%), putting pressure on the existing water supply.
• Lack of control of water supply sources (about 97% originates from outside Egypt’s borders), making the supply highly vulnerable and sensitive to any uncoordinated upstream developments, especially after the establishment of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
• Egypt, with available water resources of 610 m3 per capita as of 2019, is among the countries that fall below the UN’s water poverty line (estimated at 1,000 m3 per capita).
• Egypt also suffers from a large food production deficit, forcing it to import about 55 percent of its current food needs. This figure is expected to climb to 75 percent after the GERD is complete because of the huge quantity of water held back during the filling of the GERD’s reservoir, which has an estimated capacity of 74 billion m3 of water. That would cut 25 to 33 billion m3 from Egypt’s annual quota of Nile water, which, in turn, could yield a loss of about 2 million acres of cultivable land.

Potential investment opportunities in alternative water resources include:

• Reuse of drainage water and treated wastewater
• Desalination of sea water as an alternative for drinking and agriculture
• Drilling water wells,
• Construction of water condensers next to severe evaporation sites at coasts and cultivated lands

The Egypt Water Treatment Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 2.7% during 2021–2027. The major reason for growth in the Egypt water treatment market can be attributed to the upcoming residential projects combined with increasing awareness about health and hygiene through the efforts of public and private organizations, which would boost the sales of water treatment products in the country.

An increase in urbanization and disposable income among people in Egypt will lead to higher adoption of water purifiers among households.

Historical?analysis has shown that Egypt is fully utilizing the available resources of the Nile River and yet is facing increasing internal and external pressures that will raise water demand and decrease the availability of water.

Egypt suffers from a water deficit of 30 billion cubic meters; it annually needs at least 110 billion cubic meters of water to cover its needs. However, it currently has only 80 billion cubic meters, of which 55.5 billion come from the Nile.

To find out more, Ahram Online took a closer look at some of the key issues related to the country’s water challenges.

A growing water crisis

The average availability of freshwater per capita in Egypt has steadily decreased from about 1,893 cubic meters per capita per year in 1959 to about 900 cubic meters in 2000, and then to 700 cubic meters in 2012. This figure puts the country below the threshold of water poverty, which according to the World Bank is 1,000 cubic meters of water per person per year.

Egypt has a high population growth rate, and given this, it is expected that the share of water per capita will continue to decrease to 534 cubic meters by 2030, which is nearly half the international threshold for water poverty.

In addition, the evaporation of surface water from Lake Nasser, Egypt’s vast reservoir, is believed to exceed the previous estimated amount. The current average evaporation rate is 7 millimeters per day and is expected to reach 7.3 millimeters by 2050.

The United Nations expects Egypt to suffer from water scarcity by 2025. Assuming the continued growth of the population and taking into account land reclamation projects in the desert and the fact that more than 50 percent of grains consumed are already imported, Egypt cannot meet its demand for food only by relying on Nile water for irrigation.

Egypt is therefore already using most of its Nile flow and plans to use more in the upcoming years.

In addition, Egypt is also seeing the effects of climate change, which have affected the Nile Basin countries and, as a result, the flow of the Nile.

Several studies have shown that the Nile is very sensitive to climate change, mainly due to the decline in rainfall rate by 4 percent.

Given these factors, experts agree that Egypt should intensify its search for alternative ways to increase its share of water, whether through desalination of seawater, rationalization of consumption, or attention to providing new water sources such as reusing wastewater in agriculture and maximizing the use of groundwater, in order to face its growing water crisis, which could potentially be exacerbated by the completion of the GERD.

Another difficulty is the fact that a large part of the Delta lands in particular must be irrigated by flooding, which uses large amounts of water but prevents the soil from salinizing.

According to the information released by the agriculture ministry, the government is encouraging farmers to change irrigation methods. In 2018, 250,000 acres were cultivated with the more efficient irrigation system favored by the government.

The ministry has said that the agricultural development strategy of 2030 depends on the optimal use of agricultural water resources and irrigation water, agricultural labor and capital, and technological management in order to increase agricultural production by 1.4 percent annually, thereby achieving both better rates of food security and water consumption levels.

To be Continued ..

Part 2: The Future of Egypt's Water Resources: Availability and Sustainability

Sources:

AhramOnline

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