Why Does Egypt Have Such a Big Problem with Water

Egypt’s water problem

The news organization quoted a recent report from the Decision Support Center, which argued the country would need 86.2 billion cubic meters of water in 2017, but resources are expected to be at only 71.4 billion cubic meters. With the increase of the population, Egypt’s water crisis won’t have enough time to go until to 2017 to hit hard on water shortage. Experts say that there are already water shortages around the nation especially in poor villages that line in with the rich people. Looking at small villages around Cairo, new development projects are taking water away from the poor to save the needs of the wealthy people.

Egypt faces the prospect of rapid growth of population which is a vital problem since agricultural land is not available at the same rate. More land should be reclaimed through development of water resources.

The Nile River constitutes an immense water supply but one third of its water is lost through pumping low salinity drainage water to the Mediterranean Sea utilizing costly electric power. Therefore, feasibility studies on recycling this water must be carried out.

Along the banks of the Nile, drinking water could be obtained supplied through either small water purification plants or electro dialysis desalination plants, and the economics of the two methods should be compared before deciding on either method.

Another source is underground water with a salinity varying between 2000 and 11,000 ppm. For such brackish water, either the electro dialysis or reverse osmosis process can be used.

Then there is the Egyptian seashore, which extends over 3000 km. and where the salinity of the sea varies between 33,000 and 45,000 ppm. Here flash distillation processes are suitable.

Drinking water quality

Egypt’s another urgent problem is the water quality and sanitation. The Nile is the main drinking water source. Only 36.1% of the population is connected to the sewage network. So then most of the untreated water is released...