Figure 4: Water Projections in the year 2025.
Source: IWMI Water Scarcity Map, 2000
Tables 7, 8, and 9 above show Egypt’s share of freshwater in the Agricultural sector. It is evident that Egypt consumes a large percentage, roughly 86%, of its water for irrigation of Agricultural lands. A large percentage of these irrigation practices utilize inefficient irrigation methods such as flood/surface irrigation. More efficient irrigatin methods need to be enforced for proper management of the consumption patterns. With climate change it is still unknown what the impacts upon the Nile River flow will be. There are studies that suggest that with the increase in global temperatures there will be increased evaporation in the Nile River and thus less water supply and ultimately water scarcity. Other studies suggest that with the increased evaporation in Egypt, will result in increased precipitation in the Ethiopian highlands (more upstream from Egypt) which will lead to increased runoff in the Nile River flows downstream in Egypt. This may ultimately cause floods as the Aswan Dam at Lake Nasser in Egypt may not be able to cope with this increased runoff. The ultimate problem is that these two scenarios requires completely opposite adaptation strategies; one entails floods and increased runoff, the other is water scarcity and possible drought. This report assesses the existing studies and literature to date regarding the climate change impacts on water resources in Egypt.
Methodology A compilation of all studies and literature done to date both locally and globally was performed in order to have a clear assessment of predictions towards the impacts of climate change on water resources in Egypt. The assessment was done by exploring the following
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