The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation recently launched a national campaign to conserve water in Egypt. Called Ala Al-Qad, its message encourages citizens to use water sparingly.

Egypt needs 114 billion cubic metres of water annually for agriculture, drinking and other needs while the available and estimated water resources is 60 billion cubic metres annually, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Sweilam wrote in an article recently published in the daily Al-Ahram.

Sweilam said the deficit is currently being compensated by using 21 billion cubic metres annually from agricultural drains and importing crops from abroad, which corresponds to water consumption estimated at 33 billion cubic metres annually.

 One public service announcement currently on Egyptian radio is part of attempts to reach workers in the agricultural sector which consumes 70 per cent of Egypt’s water resources.

“If you water your land more than it can handle, the plants will turn yellow and their value will decrease,” the announcement says. “Not everything is beneficial when in excess. A drop of water according to your needs is good for you and your grandchildren.”

“Scarcity is the biggest problem facing Egypt in terms of water,” Safwat Abdel-Dayem, a professor of water resources at the National Water Research Centre, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Abdel-Dayem said climate change and rising temperatures lead to increased evaporation in lakes, waterways and the River Nile which increases scarcity. He added that the geopolitical conditions in Nile Basin countries and the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam may harm Egypt and Sudan especially during rain scarcity. This will cause the loss of two million acres out of the current total of 10 million cultivated acres, he said, leading to problems in food security and unemployment. “Scarcity is the biggest problem in addition to internal problems such as waste of water and water pollution,” Abdel-Dayem told the Weekly.

The campaign is part of the work by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to implement a second-generation water resources management system to overcome the challenges, the minister wrote. The new system relies on several factors related to water treatment and desalination for intensive food production, as the reuse and treatment of agricultural drainage water has been expanded by implementing three major projects: New Delta, Bahr Al-Baqar and Al-Mahsama to reuse agricultural drainage water.

Sweilam also highlighted the importance of digital solutions. It includes digitising data on canals, drains and water facilities, preparing databases for monitoring canals and drains, creating applications used by farmers to identify shift times, and using drone photography to monitor waterways and crop composition. Then comes smart management through rain forecasting models, calculating crop yields using satellite images, using canal network models to improve the operation and planning process, relying on “machine learning” programmes to estimate water levels, and using the Digital Earth Africa platform to follow up on Egyptian coastal protection work.

Besides the technical solutions, Sweilam stressed that one of the solutions for today’s challenges is raising people’s awareness, whether through the water guidance departments that communicate with farmers or through the media and social media.

He said the campaign is targeting a 30 per cent reduction in drinking water consumption and protection of water from pollution and waste.

“We call on all Egyptians to commit to its goals of rationalising water and protecting it from pollution.”

The campaign is being carried out with the participation of the ministries of agriculture, endowments, culture, environment, transportation, and education, under the patronage of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al-Tayeb and Pope Tawadros II, pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St Mark.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 28 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly