Review for building knowledge database and consensus report on recommendation on wlaw
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2WATER POLICIES IN EGYPTBy. Pr. Alaa El-Din Abdin (MWRI) INTRODUCTION E  gypt being a country that depends mainly on the Nile River for its water resources needs proper management of such resources in-order to meet its increasing demands. Thus, the management process cannot be maintained without a set of rules and laws that may be enforced in an appropriate way for better control and accountability.
Egypt presents an example of arid to semi-arid countries that suffer from a complex water management system due to its increasing demands and limited supplies. The increasing water demands, because of the over growing population requires coverage for agriculture and livestock which are the major consumers of water and for the domestic use of over seventy five million people in addition to the growing industrial development. Some of the power generation is also water dependent, not to mention the minimum river levels that have to be maintained for navigation purposes. The delta area also requires maintaining specific levels of freshwater in-order to avoid salt water intrusion from the sea and to maintain a safe salt balance. Egypt lies on groundwater aquifers, some of which are shallow and subject to recharge from the Nile River since they are located along the river valley and the Delta area, and the deep ones that lie in the eastern and western desert are non-renewable. The problem is that the Nile water provides Egypt with 95% of its requirements, there is little effective rainwater that falls on the northern and western coasts that are used locally. Flash floods are not properly harvested or used, therefore, they are not, at present, of significant benefit to the country. Realizing that the Nile River is considered the major artery to Egypt's water resources, then; any increase in its natural supply would increase the country's quota. Therefore, Egypt seeks capturing the huge quantities of losses along the basin course through upper Nile projects that will be of benefit as well to the basin countries in the future. The water usage in Egypt is primarily consumed by irrigation either through a traditional irrigation system that goes back to old times or by modern irrigation systems especially in new reclaimed areas that adopt automated equipment. Due to shortage of freshwater sources, there come an urge of the conjunctive use, i.e. to abstract groundwater in some areas in addition to surface water. Also, drainage water is reused extensively in other areas to cover the demands. The complexity of the Egyptian water system comes from many factors such as fulfilling the demands of an over growing population and sustaining food security, under the dynamic economic of water utilization and social pressures. Environmental deterioration adds another dimension to the matrix of difficulties as well. In view of the above discussion, Egypt was one of the few countries in the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region that developed a series of water policies which are continuously modified to cope with the ever changing circumstances. In other words Egypt has to adopt strict water conservation policy. 2.1Water Policy History in Egypt
Throughout history, Egypt was known to give priority to potable water supply projects. But since the military revolution of 1952, a slogan was raised to start the industrialization process for the greater well being of the country, then, urban and industrial growth was given priority over irrigation requirements. However, this situation did not create severe problems due to the smooth agricultural development running parallel to the increased municipal and industrial requirements. Urban and industrial users were given priority over irrigated agriculture with no restriction on supply but on pollution control since they discharged their waste into waterways, and agricultural users were compensated by effectively replacing water losses through implementing water conservation practices or developing non-traditional supplies. Over the years, about 20% of the water diverted to municipal and industrial effluents was actually depleted through different sinks except along coastal areas where they got discharged to salt sinks, and the remaining 80% were made available for reuse. However, effluent borne pollutants deteriorated its quality and thus the usefulness of reuse was jeopardized. This brought into perspective the idea of conservation which is mainly an economically and environmentally driven issue. Due to its historic role, it is politically and economically imperative in Egypt that the agricultural sector continues to expand in order to provide economic opportunities for the increasing population and their expectations, while giving industrial growth the time it needs to replace agriculture. An important social implication of agricultural expansion is to find jobs for agricultural labor which otherwise will move to urban centers creating additional increased urban population density problems. In the meantime, converting this type of labor to other activities needs time for skill development while the country is not yet in a position to compete on the industrial and tourism scales to the extent that it could be more supported by them rather than by agricultural activities. The above argument is the base for the formulation of any water policy from the end of the last century until the first quarter of the present century at which the population is expected to reach 100 million by the year 2030. Most expectations predict that by then the rate of population growth will tend to flatten and the Egyptian population will not significantly grow any further.
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