The Nile Delta: once a land of pioneers, now a land in jeopardy
p. 88-89
Texte intégral
| 19th century | 47.6% | 68% |
| Transition from recessional agriculture to perennial irrigation | Percentage of the Egyptian population living in the Delta in 2017 (not counting Cairo or the Canal cities) | Percentage of national agricultural production from the Delta |
| Source: CAPMAS | ||
1The Nile Delta is Egypt’s principle zone for agricultural production and the country’s economic engine. Nonetheless, this region, crisscrossed by multiple canals and hemmed in to the north by lakes (buhayrat), has suffered the negative effects of human activity since it is the most downstream part of the river. The construction of new dams in the Nile basin will lessen once more the quantity of available water and accentuate problems linked to water management
Waste of land and water
2The centuries-old efforts expended to improve the land and optimise water use contrast with the current waste of both resources. Hydraulic developments implemented since the 19th century represented previously unseen attempts to extend the agricultural areas towards the desert (horizontal expansion of cultivation) and to ensure several harvests per year on the same land (vertical expansion). However, the areas reclaimed in the Delta since the time of Mohamed Ali are increasingly threatened by demographic explosion. In fact, while the authorities have tried to increase agricultural development on poor quality land in the desert, the “old land” cultivated over generations is being eaten away by uncontrolled urbanisation.
3The increased vertical expansion of the land that occurred during the mid-1970s thanks to work conducted by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation is also threatened. A huge irrigation and drainage network has led to the re-use of the same water three or four times whereas it was previously lost through seepage and runoff. This hydraulic system is, however, badly maintained and many canals, often uncovered, have leakage issues.
4The generalised waste of water is surprising in a country with an arid climate. The reassuring presence of the Nile and the absence of public campaigns proposing sound water management have contributed to a lack of appreciation of the problematic scarcity of this resource. Advertising billboards for compounds with golf courses and swimming pools are ubiquitous. In addition to the problems of quantity, the quality of the water is also deteriorating from the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides, untreated industrial waste, and an inadequate national sewage system. Naturally, the authorities express their desire to increase water recycling capacity, but Nile water is not easily treated once it has passed through Helwan, the industrial suburb to the south of Cairo.
Ecological challenges
5The Nile flow rate has weakened in the Delta and this has led the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation to install pumping stations to feed water back into canals in the north. As the flow rate diminishes, so seawater increasingly infiltrates – the saltwater wedge phenomenon. This phenomenon is reinforced by a rise in sea levels due to global warming and by increased coastal erosion since the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which retains most of the silt carried by the river during flood. According to Sylvie Fanchette, the annual mass of silt transported by the river, measured at Cairo, went from 57 million tons per year before the Aswan High Dam to 2.1 million tons at the beginning of the 1990s. The lack of silt has meant that the north of the Delta is collapsing. The rural district of Gamasa might lose more than 11% of its total surface area by the end of the century.
6In tandem with the high rate of canal water evaporation, excessive use of water from the Nile has increased salinisation, which undermines the viability of agricultural land. Moreover, the decrease in water in the Nile bed has led to the rise of underground water, which happen to be brackish. This water mixes with surface water and further increases the salinity rate, which is harmful to crops.
7Rising sea levels have an impact on coastal fisheries, which are affected by changes in marine currents, and by the disappearance of certain species (e.g. common pandora), whereas others move in from the Red Sea with the increase in temperature.
5.1 Schematic map: increasing scarcity of water and the salinisation of land in the Delta

Capital of the eponymous governorate, Damietta is a medium-sized town (pop. 281,500 in 2017) located in the north-eastern corner of the Delta on the main eastern branch of the Nile. Set within a landscape of lagoons, the city is badly connected to Cairo despite having been its historical port of access and once besieged by Crusaders in the 13th century. Damietta has a strong commercial tradition based on fishing, a rich agricultural hinterland and the manufacture of furniture. The town was industrialised in the 20th century (textiles, plastics, and liquid gas in 2004) and boasts a free zone, a modern port (1986) and a new town area. In 2008, local community mobilisation, citing health and environmental risks, arose in opposition to a project by the Canadian group Agrium to build a nitrogen fertiliser plant. A liquid ammonia sulphate factory was quietly inaugurated in 2015. The projected cereal and food-processing hub decided under Sisi, the use of the Damietta plant by the Spanish-Egyptian Gas Company to liquefy natural gas from the Zohr field, and harbour expansion for handling container ships and bulk carriers to relieve Alexandria and Port Said (70km distant), are all part of future transformations orchestrated by the State. |
5.2 A peasant farmer at Kafr el-Dawwar, 2018

© Mohamed El-Shahed / AFP
Auteur
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Wahel Rashid
Wahel Rashid, PhD student in geography, Institut français de géopolitique, University of Paris 8, grant holder with the CEDEJ in 2016
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