The Nile Delta is under threat from rising sea levels. Without the food it produces, Egypt faces catastrophe
By Jack Shenker …Today, however, Nile water barely reaches this corner of the Delta. Population growth has sapped its energy upstream, and what “freshwater” does make it downriver is increasingly awash with toxins and other impurities. Farmers such as Maged now essentially rely on waste water – a mix of agricultural drainage and sewage – from the nearby town of Sidi Salim. The result is plummeting fertility; local farmers say that whereas their fathers spent just a handful of Egyptian pounds on chemicals to keep the harvests bountiful, they now have to put aside between 25 and 80% of their profits for fertilisers just to keep their crops alive. “We can see with our own eyes that the water is no good, it’s less and less pure,” Maged says. He points out huge swaths of neighbouring land that once glimmered with rice paddies; recently they have been dug up and replaced by fish farms, the ground too barren for crop cultivation. Further out, in the village of Damru, the green fields of 10 years ago are cracked and brown, now put into service as informal football pitches and rubbish dumps. Experts believe the problem is only going to get worse. “We currently have a major water deficit in Egypt, with only 700 cubic metres of freshwater per person,” explains Professor Salah Soliman of Alexandria University. “That’s already short of the 1,000 cubic metres per person the UN believes is the minimum needed for water security. Now, with the population increase, it will drop to 450 cubic metres per person – and this is all before we take into account the impact of climate change.” That impact is likely to be a 70% drop in the amount of Nile water reaching the Delta over the next 50 years, due to increased evaporation and heavier demands on water use upstream. The consequences of all these ecological changes on food production are staggering: experts at Egypt’s Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute predict that wheat and maize yields could be down 40% and 50% respectively in the next 30 years, and that farmers who make a living off the land will lose around $1,000 per hectare for each degree rise in the average temperature. …
Nile Delta: ‘We are going underwater. The sea will conquer our lands’ via Apocadocs
