Water crisis threatens Egypt


A farmer checks the water level in an irrigation canal in a village south of Luxor. AMR ABDALLAH DALSH/REUTERS

Crucial for the country, the Nile is suffering from global warming in the face of a population of 106 million and growing rapidly.

Cairo

Feeder river of Egypt for millennia, the Nile could soon fail its 106 million inhabitants. Threatened by climate change in the north, a subject of dispute with Ethiopia in the south, the second longest river in the world no longer provides Egyptians with a sufficient supply of water. The President of the Republic Abdel Fattah al-Sissi himself announced at the beginning of 2022 that the water poverty line, set at 1000 cubic meters per year and per inhabitant, had been reached. This would even already be around 500 cubic meters according to several sources. However, the country is cruelly dependent on the Nile, which provides nearly 95% of its water reserves, both for agriculture and for the domestic needs of a constantly growing population.

To date, Egypt’s water resources are stable at around 60 billion cubic meters per year, 55 of which come from the Nile and the rest from rainfall and underground reserves. But the needs of the country…

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