Egypt: Losing the Nile
January 2018
The nearly completed construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile river is posing a new threat to Egypt, a country that has always believed to be gifted with one of the greatest world watercourses. Herodotus used to refer to Egypt as “Gift of the Nile” for how its fortunes have since the pharaohs been related to the might river, slithering as a snake through kilometres of desert and feeding the people settling as its shores. The Ethiopian new dam is aimed to turn the fortunes of the river for the development purposes of Addis Abeba. The government in Cairo, dealing with political instabilities and a staggering population growth, raised the prospect of a water conflict to defend the destiny of what the ousted president Morsi has compared with the “Egyptian’s blood”. 85% of the river waters comes from lake Tana in Ethiopia (Blue Nile), the rest originate in lake Viktoria (White Nile), so that 450 million people in eleven countries are living in the Nile’s basin: Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Egypt, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Kenya. However, at the moment Egypt still receives the lion’s share of the Blue Nile: 55 billion out of the 88 billion cubic meters of water that flow down each years. This amount is becoming scarce for a population of 97 million, which has increased 5 times since 1970 when the Aswan High Dam was built.
Every Egyptian can access just 660 cubic meters per person, one of the lowest per capita water shares in the world. The quality of water is also a matter of concern due to pollution, poor structured drainage and sewerage system as well as expansion of industrial and agricultural activities. Losing more water would severely affects Egyptian agriculture, as every 1 billion cubic meters of water potentially lost would cost 200,000 acres of farmland to Egypt, affecting 1 million people. The Ethiopian government has assured Egypt that the new dam would only be used for electricity and pleased Sudan offering a deal on shared electricity production and water management to control the Nile’s flooding and increase agriculture productivity. Egypt fears that the filling of what would be the world largest reservoir on the Renaissance dam would hold water that is vital for the Egyptians relying on the Nile for the 97% of their water needs. The country that built the pyramids can no longer claim its supremacy on the river that created its myth, as most of upstream countries are organising themselves diplomatically to reshape the water treaties that are remnants of the British colonial time. The scramble for the Nile river waters will inevitably characterise and destabilise the geopolitics of the basin and Egypt finds itself in a position that makes it unlikely to accept to be losing part of its blood.
The map of the river Nile inside Nile's museum in Aswan, opened in 2016 and created by the Egyptian government with the idea of promoting friendly relations with the co-riparian countries, in a context of increased preoccupation for the construction of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
The polluted shores of Nile River at the Old Aswan Dam, a gravity masonry buttress dam built between 1899 and 1902 at the former first cataract of the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. At the time it was the largest masonry dam in the world.
A mother and her two sons in the Temples of Philae. The sacred site was an ancient pilgrimage center for the cult of Isis and was transferred block by block from Philae Island to Agilika Island before the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Isis, a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religious, is believed of having resurrected her slain husband, the divine king Osiris, and produced and protects his heir, Horus. The temple was moved piece by piece after the area was flooded by the water of the new reservoir
Boatmen in the area of the Nile between the old and the new Aswan dam, which was built in 1970. Since then the dam has held back the waters that annually flooded the banks of the Nile River, providing a reliable flow of water for Egyptian farmers in the dry season.
Saddam, a Nubian man who has spent most of his life in Bigeh island, after the flooding of the Nubian homeland with the construction of the Aswan High Dam
A muezzin walking on a small street in Bigeh island after his call for the prayer
Hieroglyphs in Kalabsha temple
A Nubian father and his two sons at the side of the low dam in Aswan
The Nile museum, with a construction celebrating the 11 river of the Nile's river basin
A mother and her three children sitting besides the Aswan High Dam on the river Nile in Aswan
Countryside of Luxor where farmer grows mainly sugarcane
A child selling sweets in the streets of Aswan
A waterpump used to pump up water from the channel of the Nile to the road where people can make use of it
Water coming out from an alabaster factory in Luxor
Fishermen in Luxor
A man walking his own street with with the intention of filling a plastic bottle and a buckle of water in the city of Qena.
Egyptians rely on the Nile for the 97% of their water needs.
The train station in Qena. Egypt’s population is multiplying fast. From about 66 million at the beginning of the century, to around 97 million people today. Demographers project that the country’s total will be 150 million by 2050 If current birth rates hold.
New constructions building in Asyut. The expansion of the city to come at pace with demographic grow is eating up more and more precious farmland which is also needed to sustain the population.
Children at the side of the Nile in the city of Qena
The Great Pyramid of Giza is a defining symbol of Egypt and the last of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World. It was built over a twenty-year period during the reign of the king Khufu (2589-2566 BCE, also known as Cheops)
Coptic christians of the community of the Zabaleen in Manshiyat Nasser, the 'Garbage City', a slum settlement at the base of Mokattam Hill, on Christmas day celebrations
One of the main channels of the Nile completed fill with plastic bags and bottles in the area of Saqqarah, a few kilometers south of Cairo
A bedouin carrying his sheep in Tahrir square, Cairo, where the revolution of 2011 sparked. Beside the discontent towards the rulers, the protest were also fueled by Egyptian economy’s inability to cope with the hundreds of thousands of young men entering the workforce each year