02-02 Egypt - John Bulloch

Egypt is another nation in the Middle East that is water stressed. For years its people have lived off the polluted water of the Nile River. Now what flows down the Nile have been slowed by the huge dam in Ethiopia, Egypt is moving to updated technology to treat sewage and desalinate the water of the Mediterranean.

Historians believe climate change in history contributed to the end of the age of the pharaohs when Egypt was the most powerful nation in the Mediterranean world.
It is a world of deserts and water scarcity which today is getting more serious each year. And it is not just climate change but a rapidly growing population.
To add pressure on Egypt, the new massive Ethiopia Dam is now completed and every time the water in the dam is filled the flow of water downriver through Sudan and Egypt is impacted.
What is so shocking is the degree to which the people of Egypt have used the Nile as a dump. Not just a personal dump but a place to send all forms of municipal waste.
Today, Egypt is facing a water crisis, with global warming, a population explosion and the new Ethiopian dam creating an environmental triple whammy.
Hard to believe that individuals get their drinking water from the Nile. Naturally they have to boil it.
Also hard to believe that with their peace agreement with Israel, Egypt would not be partnering with Israel on matters of irrigation, sewage treatment and desalination. Israel now provides its expertise to the world, including the water stressed area of the United States.
But Egypt has not been sleeping, and instead has developed its own desalination technology, and plans to build 47 desalination plants in five years. This will not only replace the Nile as a source of drinking water, but enable Egypt to open desert areas for agriculture just as Israel has done.
What is also so interesting is to see Egypt experimenting with new species of rice that can grow in different soil and water conditions. It’s a case of necessity being the mother of invention.