On World Water Day .. Egypt between climate change and thirst

Doaa Abdel-Tabaf - Cairo

While the world faces climate changes that threaten water scarcity during the second half of the current century, Egypt stands between the hammer of those changes and the anvil of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that threatens its main source of water, the Nile.

These climate changes necessitated that this year's World Water Day - which is celebrated on the twenty-second of March of each year - under the slogan "Water and Climate Change" to direct countries' attention towards the danger that stands on its doorstep.

At the heart of the danger is Cairo, where it faces the risk of a shortage of its share of water from the Nile River due to the construction of Addis Ababa, the Renaissance Dam, which government officials consider a direct threat to Egyptian national security.

According to a study published in the Journal of Hydrology and Earth System Science, on water scarcity, about half of the world's population will live in a situation of serious water stress between 2071 and 2100 due to changes that humans have made to the environment.

Water distribution
On the occasion of World Water Day, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics issued a statement on Egypt's water sources with their relative distribution and consumption outlets.

The statement stated that the Nile River is the main water resource in Egypt, and its share of it is 55.5 billion cubic meters, representing 69.2% of the total water resources in 2017/2018.

While rain water, torrents, groundwater, recycled agricultural and health wastewater and desalinated sea water are estimated at 24.75 billion cubic meters in the same year.

The amount of water consumed in agriculture was 61.65 billion m 3 in 2017/2018 compared to 61.35 billion in the previous year, an increase of 0.5 percent, while the amount of water consumed for drinking was 10.70 billion m3 in 2017/2018 compared to 10.75 billion in the previous year, a decrease of 0.5 percent.

From official statistics, it appears that a great danger faces Egypt if its share of the Nile decreases, which is expected to decrease to become about 31 billion square meters a year with the beginning of Ethiopia's storage of water behind its dam.

Climate changes increase the severity of the Egyptian water situation. According to Dr. Maher Aziz, energy and environment consultant and climate change and a member of the World Energy Council, there are many introductions and extremist events that have already taken place that show that there are real changes in the climate.

He explained in a press statement that the latest assessment report issued by the International Commission on Climate Change, registered Egypt as one of the countries most at risk in the world.

He pointed out that 96 studies presented scenarios of the impact of the Nile River due to climatic changes, pointing out that 90 scenarios gave negative indications that there is scarcity of the Nile River water soon due to the changes, compared to only 6 scenarios that said the amount of rain will increase.

Water resources development
For a period of about five years, Egypt entered the dark tunnel of negotiations with Ethiopia and Sudan with a view to finding a solution that satisfies the three parties on the Renaissance Dam, and then resorted recently to the United States of America as a parachute for negotiations, which was later rejected by Addis Ababa to announce its withdrawal, in late February, from Washington meetings.

In the face of statements by Ethiopian officials about their country's intention to complete the construction of the Renaissance Dam without the right of any party to review it, Cairo is trying to seek in more than one way.

While Egyptian officials are waving asylum in the Security Council, and reports talk about the possibility of war, there is another way trying to develop the country's water resources.

Parliament reviewed, during the sessions of last week, recommendations made to the government in the field of water resources development, the recommendations included achieving the maximum utilization of rain water and torrents, maximizing the utilization of the surface and deep underground reservoir, the use of solar energy in seawater desalination, and expanding the safe use of agricultural wastewater after treatment In agricultural business.

There is also the Twentieth National Plan for Water Resources (2017-2037), which requires investments of about 900 billion pounds over the next twenty years, including 200 billion pounds for sanitation in rural areas out of 600 billion for infrastructure.

He called on parliament to stop viewing wastewater as waste and treat it as a source for irrigating crops if managed properly and safely, as well as protecting water resources from pollution by requiring industrial and tourist facilities to treat their waste.

The recommendations included the use of remote sensing techniques in agriculture to determine the appropriate amounts of water without wasting, and codifying unified legislation that includes all methods of developing water resources, preserving them from pollution and methods of preserving them from waste.

A threat to Egypt
For his part, dam engineering expert, Dr. Mohamed Hafez, said that Egypt had already begun to sense climate change. During the month of March, it was exposed to huge amounts of rain, which is not usual in this time of the year.

And the matter does not depend only on what happened in the current March, but it exceeded all seasons of the year, according to Hafez, the summer heat rose remarkably against the palace of the spring and autumn seasons, adding that Egypt has entered a new climate space with variables and influences that must be studied.

He explained to Al-Jazeera Net that these climatic changes will be reflected in the agricultural sector with more annual losses, whether due to the death of the women farmers who drowned in the winter or because the summer heat has increased.

On the side of the impact of climate changes on the Nile flows in general and the Blue Nile in particular, the dam engineering expert explained that the Blue Nile flows represent about 60 percent of the total unified Nile flows that flow into Lake Nasser, warning of the danger of changing the Nile cycle known as the role of the 21 years.

Therefore, the Egyptian negotiator with Ethiopia insists on specifying the quantities of the Blue Nile flows in the years of prolonged droughts and droughts, and Hafiz clarified that building the Renaissance Dam in the manner that Addis Ababa wishes to implement would deprive Cairo of all the Blue Nile flows.

He pointed to Ethiopia's insistence on filling the reservoir of the Renaissance Dam Dam over a period of 4 years so that it will fill with the flood this year an estimated 4.9 billion cubic meters, meaning the filling up of the Penstock level for the upper turbines at the level of 560 with the aim of studying the stresses and passions of the foundation concrete before starting to load to the level of 595 i.e. Operating level of all turbines, including low level turbines.

With the beginning of April 2021, storage will start and prevent any water from coming out of the dam until the 595 level is reached, so electricity from the first low-level turbines will start.

This will be followed by filling the storage lake by taking over the flood in 2021, 2022 and 2023 completely, and storing about 30 billion cubic meters of water annually, with the disbursement of about 18 billion cubic meters that Sudan is expected to consume throughout the days of the year so that the practical result is not to keep water heading to Lake Nasser in front of The High Dam in southern Egypt.

The dam engineering expert pointed out that if Ethiopia experienced any climatic changes during the storage period, it is expected that the storage period will be prolonged for more than 4 years and may take approximately 7 years in the event that the flooding of the coming years is similar to the flood of 2015, which was almost half of the natural flows of the Blue Nile.