water resources in egypt

Introduction


Water
resources in Egypt are becoming scarce. Surface-water resources
originating from the Nile are now fully exploited, while groundwater
sources are being brought into full production. Egypt is facing
increasing water needs, demanded by a rapidly growing population, by
increased urbanisation, by higher standards of living and by an
agricultural policy which emphasises expanded production in order to
feed the growing population. The population is currently increasing by
more than one million people a year. With a population of approximately
55 million in 1994, Egypt is expected to see an increase to some 63
million by the year 2000, and 86 million by 2025.
Improved
planning and management procedures to appropriate, allocate and use
water are key measures generally prescribed to make the optimum use of
available water. As Falkenmark notes, the main constraint for most
countries, at medium term, is the capability to develop a sophisticated
and far-sighted water-management strategy, along with the legislation
and administration necessary to support them. Dr. Abu-Zeid, chairman of
Egypt's Water Research Centre points out that "satisfying future
demands in Egypt depends on better utilisation and efficient use of
present water resources. Optimal water management is an essential
prerequisite for sustainable development of Egypt." The future looks
bleak if Egypt does not succeed in formulating and implementing a water
policy which can match the limited freshwater supply with the
increasing demand. The per capita water resources is expected to drop
from a current value of about 922 m3 per year (1990) to about 337 m3
per year in 2025. And, if the present management practices and cropping
patterns prevail, this could mean that up to 60 per cent of the
agricultural land will not be irrigated.
This paper analyses
Egypt's water policy planning and proposes to highlight the
characteristics of this planning effort. To that end, the paper
examines the objectives along with the means applied to reach those
objectives and it also looks at problems and constraints of a
technical, administrative and financial nature encountered in the
planning process. Particular emphasis is placed on the functioning of
the administrative framework established to undertake this planning
effort. Such an analysis is worthwhile because knowledge of Egyptian
water resource planning is presently very limited and largely
undocumented. The conclusions resulting from this exercise are thus of
a preliminary nature. The sources for this paper are the available
documentation and the author's own experience gained from research
carried out in Egypt in relation to implementation of the Irrigation
Improvement Project.
The
main objective of water planning in Egypt has been to harness the
highly fluctuating Nile flows, making them available for domestic and
productive purposes. The means of fulfilling this objective have been
to establish over-season storage, over-year storage, and flood control.
These goals were basically achieved in 1971 following the inauguration
of the Aswan High Dam (AHD).
Even though irrigation has taken
place in the Nile Valley for nearly 5000 years, it is only in modern
times - starting around 1850 - that the erection of water control
structures such as barrages, canals, weirs was begun. Except for the
Nile itself, every bit of the Egyptian water conveyance system is
man-made and thus an expression of planned effort. The Egyptian
irrigation system is tremendous in size and complexity. It consists of
the Aswan High Dam, eight main barrages, approximately 30,000 km of
public canals, 17,000 km. of public drains, 80,000 km. of private
canals (mesqas) and farm drains, 450,000 private water-lifting devices (sakias
or pumps), 22,000 public water-control structures, and 670 large public
pumping stations for irrigation. Throughout this system, approximately
59 billion m3 of water are distributed annually, not only for
cultivated land, but also for municipal and industrial use, for
generation of hydro-electricity and for the navigation of freighters
and tourist boats on
the Nile.
What should be understood by
the term "planning"? Policy sets the objectives; management attempts to
achieve these objectives, and monitoring estimates the results. The
term "planning" is used throughout this paper to include these three
elements - policy formulation, management, and monitoring - because
these elements are inter-linked through a cybernetic feedback process.
Planning is thus viewed as a process in which action taken yields
responses which, in turn, provide new inputs in the planning process
which, again, might lead to changed policies and so forth.
A
prerequisite for good water planning is an administrative framework,
which through management and monitoring, can provide information
upwards through the system to feed into the planning exercise. A real
planning capability, thus, entails a broad-based knowledge and a set of
procedures and standards in the administration which are present at
different hierarchical levels. The administrative framework established
for water planning and management currently in use, is outlined below.
Formerly
called the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of Public Works and
Water Resources (MPWWR) is responsible for national water resources and
is the only body to authorise use of water from the Nile, canals,
drains, and groundwater sources. The ministry also has control over
works built to discharge water into canals, drains, and the Nile. MPWWR
is authorised to assess penalties if its orders are not obeyed.
In
addition to MPWWR, a number of other ministries are also involved in
water management and use, including agriculture and land reclamation,
health, tourism, power, transportation, industry, and housing and
reconstruction.
Two ministries, agriculture and land reclamation,
and health, hold special responsibilities in their management role of
water. The ministry of agriculture and land reclamation has special
responsibilities because agriculture consumes around 85 per cent of the
water. Prior to 1992, when cropping patterns were liberalised, the
ministry of agriculture and land reclamation decided, in consultation
with the ministry of industry, which crops were to be grown in which
localities. Such planning was undertaken a year in advance. From this
exercise, the ministry requested specific volumes of water to be
delivered to each canal and each branch canal. Following the
liberalisation of the cropping pattern, however, it is not known
precisely how the water allocation takes place. The ministry of health,
which also holds special responsibilities, is authorised to close
potable water supply works if the water produced does not meet
standards. The ministry of health is further responsible for drafting
quality standards for various water uses and for discharges of waste
water.
To ensure co-ordination among agencies involved in water
resources, three committees have been formed. Two of them, the Supreme
Committee of the Nile, headed by the minister of the MPWWR, and the
Co-ordinating Committee for Land Reclamation meet monthly to direct and
review different developments plans, as well as to resolve conflicts
between ministries. The third committee is called the Inter-Ministerial
Committee on Water Planning (ICWP) and was established in 1977 as a
part of the Master Water Plan project. ICWP is, as the name indicates a
cross-ministerial committee with a strict focus on planning. It has
been given the responsibility to set planning assumptions and review
development plans.
Outside observers do not know much about how
this administrative set-up actually functions. This, too, is a largely
undocumented area. But a review of the literature on the general state
of Egyptian bureaucracy documents an organisation legendary for its
high degree of centralisation and inefficiency, resulting from such
problems as over-staffing, low salaries, and lack of incentives. In
those respects, there are certainly differences among Egyptian
ministries and the MPWWR is generally known to be among the best
functioning in Egypt. The literature suggests, however, that even the
administrative set-up for water planning might be haunted by some of
the problems mentioned above.
In Egypt, water planning is said to
have started in 1933 when a policy was formulated to use the additional
storage capacity made available by the second heightening of the old
Aswan Dam and the Gabal El-Awlia Dam in Sudan. This plan introduced
programmes for land-reclamation, conversion of some basin irrigation to
perennial irrigation, and increases in the areas under rice
cultivation. This policy was first revised in 1974 and again in 1975
when a new plan was drafted to accommodate the extra volumes of water
resulting from the erection of the AHD.
In 1981, the first attempt
was made to create a master plan for all water use in Egypt. It was
carried out in the early 1980s under the auspices of UNDP and the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The
minister of irrigation at the time pointed out the objective to be
achieved by this effort: "Because of this increasing competition for
water and its limited availability, it was imperative to introduce new
scientific techniques, and to use mathematical models to design future
plans for water development, and to ensure efficient use of this
resource." The resulting plan, the "Arab Republic of Egypt Master Plan
for Water Resources Development and Use" is, however, not a plan as
such, but a first step in an process which is intended to lead to
improved planning capabilities within the sector. The main objective of
the plan is to implement planning tools (i.e., to establish data bases
and build flow models) which will make it possible to plan the
development and use of water resources with greater precision in the
future and, thus, to guide investment decisions.
The planning
effort claimed to have achieved the following objectives: establishment
of a data base; the setting-up specific planning tools including six
models which were built and implemented; establishment of three
planning scenarios for new land development; and determination of an
economic rate of return and returns to water for ranking
land-development projects. The document points out that the results
obtained from these planning tools are to be seen more as trials than
final results. Because of a lack of data, the assumptions built into
the models need to be replaced with real values when they are
determined. The plan established three scenarios for future water
demand and supply. Three main variables were analysed in detail: the
supply, through implementation of water conservation projects, i.e.,
the Jonglei I and II projects in Sudan; the demand for all user-groups;
and the resulting potential expansion of agriculture on new lands. The
plan also established priorities for the satisfaction of water needs.
First, it said water demand for municipal, industrial, navigation and
spills should be satisfied; second, water use on the old agricultural
lands should be satisfied, and third, the remaining volumes of water
could be used to satisfy water demand for land reclamation.
The
latest update of Egyptian water policy dates from June 1990. It is a
ten-year plan covering the period 1990 to 2000. This plan was made in
response to several events which, in the late 1980s, altered previous
assumptions and had a direct impact on water planning in Egypt. The
main events are as follows: (1) The 1979-88 drought period during which
the Nile flows yielded 99 billion m3 less water than expected into Lake
Nasser and reduced the reservoir to a critical minimum of 6.8 billion
m3 by July 1988; (2) cessation`in 1983 of construction works on the
Jonglei Canal because of the civil war in southern Sudan, a project
which would have provided Egypt with an extra 2 billion m3 per year;
and (3) a revitalisation of the land-reclamation programme planned to
reclaim 60,700 hectares annually, requiring one million m3 of
additional water each year. In other words, less water than anticipated
would been available to satisfy needs. As noted above, the very
critical water situation in 1988 opened the eyes of Egypt's water
planners. Despite the AHD, Egypt was still vulnerable to the Nile flows
and thus the "need for rationalisation and reductions in water use
emerged as common agreed possibilities to face the coming unknown".
During
the drought years the MPWWR took different decisions to mitigate the
effects: (1) no releases of water from the AHD were allowed with the
sole purpose of power generation; (2) the New Esna Barrage was
constructed to allow for improved water control (3) changes were made
in the timing and duration of winter closure periods (from 21 to 28
days plus minimised releases for the AHD during the period); (4)
releases of fresh water to the sea through the Rosetta branch were
minimised; and (5) a National Irrigation Improvement programme was
launched. The 1990 to 2000 plan states seven main points: (1) the
surface water available to Egypt is limited to Egypt's share (55.5
billion m3 per year) as agreed with Sudan in the 1959 Nile agreement;
(2) the Jonglei Canal will be completed by the year 2000; (3) re-use of
drainage water shall be maximised; (4) groundwater extraction from deep
aquifers in the desert and from shallow ones in the delta shall be
increased; (5) fresh water releases to the sea shall be minimised; (6)
savings of water shall be emphasised through water management and
improvement of the conveyance system; (7) land reclamation shall
continue at a rate of 60,000 hectares per year, totalling 0.65 million
hectares by the year 2000. Tables 1 and 2 show the assumptions regarding the sources and the demand made in the 1990 to 2000 water resources plan.
Table 1 Present and future water resources, in billion cubic metres per year
Sources19902000

River Nile water	55.5	57.5*
Groundwater	2.6	4.9
Agricultural drainage water	4.7	7.0
Treated municipal sewage water	0.2	1.1
Saving flow water management programmes	-	1.0
Deep groundwater (deserts)	0.5	2.5
Total	63.5	74.0

Table 2 Present and future water demands, in billion cubic metres per year
19902000

Irrigation	49.7	59.9*
Municipal uses	3.1	3.1**
Industrial	4.6	6.1
Navigation and regulation	1.8	0.3
Total	59.2	69.4

Source:
Abu-Zeid, "Water Resources Assessment for Egypt", paper from Roundtable
on Egyptian Water Policy, Alexandria, Egypt, 11-13 April 1992.
*Including irrigation requirements for an additional 0.65 million ha to be reclaimed by the year 2000.
**Additional requirements will be secured by reducing the system losses from present value of 50 per cent to 20 per cent.
The figures presented in Tables 1 and 2
provide a water surplus of around 5 billion m3 annually by the year
2000, if and only if, the planned improvements of the system are
undertaken. There are good reasons to believe, however, that they will
not be. As Abu-Zeid already noted in 1992, the assumptions of the year
2000 plan seem over-optimistic: the Jonglei canal may not be finished
by year 2000, pollution hazards are seriously affecting the quality of
agricultural drainage water which hampers potential re-use; the
implementation rates of the national irrigation improvement programme
are slower than anticipated; and finally, plans to store fresh water in
the Northern Lakes are strongly opposed by environmentalist groups
because of potential impacts on fish and bird life in the lakes.
From the preceding overview of the water policy planning in Egypt, eight characteristics of this effort can be extracted:
(1) Shift from water abundance to water deficit
Whereas
the supply situation in Egypt has been characterised by abundance, at
least up to the year 1988, the system is now in a process of slowly
transforming itself into a water deficit system. It is evident from the
plans and from the intentions in them, that this has changed the
perception of the severity of the problems.
(2) Importance of international co-operation
The
international aspect is a crucial factor in Egyptian water planning.
Because Egypt's water resources are all produced outside the country
(upstream of Lake Nasser), the planned expansion of supply has to be
undertaken in collaboration with upstream governments. This places
Egypt in a very difficult planning situation, since it simply does not
possess control over the speed of the implementation of the water
conservation projects along the White Nile. It is estimated that the
inflow to Lake Nasser could be increased by as much as 18 billion m3
per year to be shared by Egypt and Sudan by implementing the four
phases of the upper Nile projects (Jonglei I, Jonglei II, Machar
Marshes and Bahr El-Ghazal). And, as it looks now, Egypt will
increasingly come to rely on the implementation of these projects.
(3) Supply bias
There
are two main ways one can match demand with supply: either by reducing
demand or by increasing supply. In the outlined water plans, there is a
a "supply bias" - a strong emphasis on expanding the supply either by
getting larger volumes of water into the system (e.g., the Jonglei
project), or by optimising the operation of the system (e.g., the Esna
Barrage, winter closures, greater groundwater extractions and re-use of
drainage water), or by eradicating releases of water from the AHD for
purposes that can otherwise be satisfied more cheaply (e.g., power
generation).
In spite of the increasing scarcity of water,
however, there are virtually no indications of attempts to reduce water
demand in the three main water-consuming sectors; agriculture,
municipal, or industrial. Reducing demand is dealt with only as an
issue of eradicating inefficiencies in the operation of the system
which means, for example, reducing water losses in the potable water
system and the overall conveyance system. Concerning municipal and
industrial water use, the argument seems to be that these sectors are
expected to grow in the future, following population rises, improved
living standards, increased urbanisation, and higher industrial
production.
(4) Environmental concern
Environmental
issues have become of great concern because the water supply system
relies heavily on re-use of the waste- and drain-water. A high
percentage of the drain- and waste-water is discharged untreated
directly back into canals, drains or the Nile. The most urgent issues
to be addressed are thus salinity from agriculture; water pollution
from municipal and industrial use; potential groundwater contamination
from nitrogen, phosphate and potash fertilisers (the use of which has
quadrupledt between 1960 and 1988); and the impact of herbicide use,
originating from schemes to control weeds in canals.
(5) Lack of data
Lack
of adequate data seems to be a constraint on the planning effort. As
mentioned earlier, the Water Master Plan based all its calculations on
estimations and the project had to establish a reliable data-base
encompassing the key data to be used. Today, no accurate figures exist
concerning municipal and industrial use, and concerning pollution
control, part from data on water salinity, the "availability of usable
information data on various water quality parameters are basically
non-existent". Egypt is at present first in the process of establishing
a ministry of environment, to which Denmark is supplying technical
assistance.
(6) Established priority to non-agricultural uses of water
Even
though agricultural production and the horizontal expansion of
agricultural land hold a prominent position in Egyptian development
planning, water resource planning has priority in non-agricultural uses
of water. This priority was first established in the 1981 Water Master
Plan, but it can be found as an underlying assumption in all subsequent
writings. It means, simply enough, that municipal and industrial water
use has to be satisfied before water is allocated to agriculture.
Within agriculture, priority is given to satisfying water needs at the
"old lands" and at the "old new lands". The speed and size of the land
reclamation effort is, therefore, determined by the residual amounts of
water, when all other uses are satisfied. A main function of the water
resource planning, thus, is to specify the size of the reclamation
effort. Hydrological power- generation, though, is an exception to the
rule. Since 1988, no additional releases from the AHD have been allowed
for the sole purpose of generating power.
(7) Delayed implementation
As
pointed out above, some of the main assumptions underlying the year
1990 to 2000 plan have proved to be over-optimistic. The delay of the
Jonglei I project is just one example. But implementation of projects
to rehabilitate and improve the performance of the overall water
conveyance systems inside Egypt also seems to have run far behind
schedule. This is, however, a general phenomenon in developing
economies, where a severe constraint on financial resources, weak
administrations and - often - a lack of political commitment, provide
an environment which is not conducive to carrying out maintenance and
improvement of the systems.
( An uncertain administrative framework for water resource planning
There
is a significant lack of detailed information concerning the
capabilities and the actual functioning of the planning procedure
within MPWWR and among the other ministries participating in the water
resource planning. But, based on field experience, however, it is safe
to say that decisions are generally taken, investments are made and
some degree of maintenance of the system is undertaken. While this
indicates that management of the system is undertaken, it provides
little guidiance as to whether a real planning capacity is present in
the MPWWR.
It is striking that the scarce literature on Egyptian
water planning appears mostly as conference papers. Except for the
Water Master Plan of 1981, the author has never seen any of the
mentioned plans written - either in English or Arabic - or seen any
direct references to such plans. This lack of written material could
indicate one of three things: either (1) that systematic water resource
planning is not undertaken or (2) that information about water policy
planning is considered as a national security issue to which only few
persons placed in high positions in the planning hierarchy have - and
should have - access or (3) that the general tendency of bureaucracies
is to avoid problems by not publishing plans. A written document
commits the planning authority to follow up plans with action, and if a
planning target is not met, individual people in the bureaucracy might
be held accountable.
The information available to the author does
not, however, provide any evidence to determine which of the
above-mentioned issues is most prominent in Egyptian water planning. It
could be a combination of them. But there are indications that Egyptian
water resource planning is primarily the work of a handful of highly
competent decision-makers in the MPWWR and in the Water Research
Centre. Based on experience, though, it is not my impression that a far
broader planning machinery is implemented at all levels in the MPWWR.
When
one looks closely at the planning objectives mentioned above, it is
surprising that water savings, i.e., per unit of land, do not appear as
a major issue in the plans. Mindful of the fact that Egyptian
agriculture absorbs 84 per cent of the irrigation water, one should
think there would be scope for substantial savings of water within this
sector, which, in turn, could add to the overall supply.
In Egypt,
field irrigation efficiencies are low. In 1979 the minister of
irrigation wrote that "Egyptian agriculture is considered to be one of
the most consumptive of irrigation water in the world. This high
consumption is not due to reasons related to soil, but is mainly
related to the wasteful use of irrigation water" and he estimated that
the irrigation efficiency was between 45 and 50 per cent. Since then,
the situation does not seem to have improved: today this efficiency is
estimated to be around 45 per cent. Actual measurements point out that
farmers generally apply 50 to 250 per cent more water than is needed by
the crops and for leaching requirements. The lack of water control is
one reason for this vast over-irrigation. When they lack control of the
timing and quantities of the water supply, "the general tendency of
farmers is to irrigate too soon and apply too much water". But, as
Stoner points out, farm irrigation efficiencies have no real
significance when one considers a closed basin such as the Nile Valley
and the Delta. Here water apparently lost in wasteful irrigation
practices is picked up in the groundwater or in drainage and used
again. Abu-Zeid estimates that the overall water-use efficiency level
reaches a value of 65 to 75 per cent because of the extensive water
pumping from shallow aquifers and the re-use of agricultural drainage
through recycling. Keller calculates the overall system efficiency to
be in the neighbourhood of 89 per cent, and concludes that this is a
"quite high efficiency, which leaves little room for conserving water
simply by increasing the efficiencies at local levels". So, the scope
for substantial supply increases as a result of improved field
efficiencies is simply limited and that is the main explanation of why
improved irrigation efficiencies at farm level do not play a prominent
role in Egyptian water resource planning. The main concern in
irrigation water planning is to achieve higher agricultural production,
and not to reduce water consumption.
In the 1980 "Strategy for
Irrigation Development in Egypt up to the year 2000" water conservation
is not mentioned once. Instead, the strategy encompasses three stages
of irrigation improvement: (1) the improvement of control and
distribution of irrigation water; (2) the development of field
irrigation systems; and (3) direct pricing of irrigation water.
The
aim in the first stage is to increase the efficiency of the
distribution system up to the field outlet. In the second stage, the
aim is to irrigate at the highest possible field efficiency at farm
level. Both stages put the farmers in control of the water which
provides the optimum conditions for good agricultural production. In
stage three, the pricing of water is primarily viewed as a tool to
extract funds from the agricultural community to operate and maintain
irrigation systems, a view which has not changed in the 25 years which
have elapsed since then. Abu-Zeid in 1992 mentions water savings only
as an auxiliary benefit of water pricing, saying "it could help also in
conserving water uses by the farmers".
The World Bank, however,
point out that it is of the utmost importance "to take all measures
necessary for ensuring the efficient use of the sector's single most
important limiting factor of production - water". Abu-Zeid estimates
that the National Irrigation Programme, in the long run, can produce
on-farm water savings of between 10-15 per cent along with an average
increase in agricultural productivity of 30 per cent. He also observes
that further reduction in the water needs by agriculture can be found
by modifying the cropping patterns to reduce areas under traditionally
high water consumption. Crops such as sugar cane and rice get about 25
to 30 per cent of the supply of water for irrigation. So, it seems that
in agriculture the saving of water is an element of planning to be
emphasised in the coming decades.