Egypt’s Water Crisis Mounts

Egypt’s Water Crisis Mounts

 Egypt ’s Water Research Center issued a report in which it warned that the water problem is exacerbating, expecting that Egypt may face water famine by 2025.
 
The crisis of water outage continues in some areas in the capital Cairo without seeking a radical solution for this problem. This made residents use polluted canals water to drink and made them stage demonstrations in front of the governorate building in Dakahlia to tell government that they use polluted water to alleviate their thirsty although this may trigger diseases, cholera, typhoid and Hepatitis and renal failures.
 
The demonstrators criticized the government policy of wasting millions of pounds on useless projects, blaming the government for the current aggravated crisis and accusing it of maladministration and not using the available resources well.
 
The Water Research Center’s report confirmed that about 60% of the farming lands lack water for irrigation due to the decreasing water resources, and because there is no clear plan for any possible alternative sources under the rising water demand. The report confirmed that lacking a sound management of water resources, the deterioration of irrigation networks, sanitary systems and water pollution presage a disaster under the increasing Egyptian population which is expected to hit the 100 million landmark. All this set the scene for a water famine in Egypt by the year 2025.
 
The report criticized also the increasing pollution in the River Nile, confirming that this pollution is a main factor in the decrease of water under the absence of deterrent measures to prevent the pollution of water of the River Nile, leading to losing more than 30 % of its water.
 
Regarding this topic, Dr. Ammar Ali Hassan, the manager of the Manager of the Middle East studies and research center said in a statement to Ikhwanweb:
I think that the water crisis in Egypt is due to five main factors:
First: Lacking a rationalized consumption of water among Egyptian citizens
Second: Bad planning of agricultural projects like Toshka project whose bad management led its failure and to wasting so much money.
Third: The aggression on Egyptian groundwater. The great river carried out by Al Gaddafi depends primarily on Egyptian underground water.
Fourth: The state of corruption and class discrimination that made the government focus on supplying water to luxury areas of the rich in the northern coast, coastal cities, in Sinai and on the Suez canal at the expense of the Egyptian countryside and other people in governorates.
Fifth: the climate change in Egypt and the rising humidity, making the Egyptians use more water in bathing and drinking than previous years. The climate is expected to continue changing and the problem is expected to aggravate unless a suitable solution is provided.
 
“Unfortunately, decision makers ignored views that expected this problem a long time ago. They chose well-trusted but not experienced experts. This phenomenon isn’t restricted to the water crisis, but it includes they way all problems are solved in Egypt . There are solutions for problems in industrialization, social planning, agriculture, trade, foreign policies. But the regime gives a deaf ear to these views and carries out what eventually spawns failure at the expense of Egyptian public interests.
 
Ammar warned that the crisis may snowball unless a quick sound planning is adopted. He urged citizens to rationalize water consumption This requires a confidence in the regime and a general feeling of justice. There will be no response while the crisis is exacerbating and the government moves from one failure to another. People don’t need a partial solution. They need an all out eradication of the problem so that it doesn’t emerge again .