The main water source for Egypt is the Nile, as graphically illustrated by this map from Lonely Planet:
Ayah Aman reports on the Nile’s condition for AL Monitor:
An intensive media and political momentum is taking place in Egypt in regard to the conflict with Nile headwaters countries over securing Egypt’s annual share of the Nile waters. At the same time, the pollution of the Nile River remains a pending issue that is being underscored in Egypt with every water poisoning incident caused by the dumping of hazardous waste in the river. The debate usually ends when the government reassures the public, and emphasizes that the water is safe and suitable for human consumption, without establishing long-term policies to resolve the crisis. …
Kareem Khaled, a water-quality researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, spoke to Al-Monitor about the water quality in Egypt. He said, “The absence of a single administrative body in charge of water management and quality improvement from the High Dam to the riverbed, and up to the point where it [water] is delivered to people’s homes, is the reason behind water pollution in Egypt.”
Khaled added, “The state of the Nile water still needs to be precisely and scientifically defined, and we need to find out what pollutants are in the water. The river is subject to all forms of pollution, the most dangerous of which is the untreated, solid industrial waste, which is causing an accumulation of heavy metals in the aquaculture and drinking water, and therefore causes many health problems.”
Problems are blamed on management and pollution:
… since it consumes far more water than it can replenish. In addition to other problems that weigh down on the country — such as population density and the dilapidated pipe network, which alone is behind 35% of wasted water every year — Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, because there is not enough water to grow the crops locally.
Earlier this year Mz Aman had reported on an agreement between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia as the nations seek peaceful means to allocate the Nile:
Since the presidents of the Eastern Nile countries of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signed the Declaration of Principles of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on March 23, relative official and public acceptance have prevailed in Egypt. After a long historical feud over the Nile waters that Egypt considers part of its national security, Ethiopia and Egypt are trying to rebuild trust. …
The historical agreements giving Egypt an annual quota of the Nile waters, estimated at 55.5 billion cubic meters per year, remain the main issue for Egypt. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry asserted that these agreements will remain intact, particularly the 1959 water-sharing agreement signed with Sudan. Upstream countries have rejected the agreement, claiming that it gives the lion’s share of the water to Egypt. …
Sisi sent several messages in his impromptu statement during the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Khartoum.
“The Renaissance Dam still constitutes a concern for Egyptians, especially since the Nile is their only source of water,” he said, but asserted, “God commands water to flow into Egypt so that Egyptians can live and revive their civilization.” Sisi tried to break the ice with Ethiopia by saying, “We could have lived for years in dispute and doubt, but we have opted for cooperation and trust.”
FutureDirections International (referenced by Mz Aman, above) notes:
- The Entebbe Agreement has shifted control over the Nile away from Egypt and Sudan, who previously had a monopoly over the river’s resources as a result of colonial agreements.
- The food and water security situation in Egypt is extremely vulnerable, due to population growth and environmental factors that have raised deep concerns amongst the nation’s political leaders, already concerned about the geo-political shift in the Nile basin region.
And they agree concerning water availability:
These Nile Basin nations have a combined population of over 450 million people and estimates indicate that over 200 million of them rely directly on the Nile for their food and water security. The Nile is the only major reliable source of renewable water supplies in the region. The Nile Basin’s population is expected to double in the next twenty-five years.
Aljazeera America has a 15 month old opinion piece which is necessarily out of date, but does have an excellent interactive map of the Nile basin, including dam sites. It is not embeddable, so I recommend you go to the site to see the map.
