When I read this article about Egypt greening their desserts, I actually thought it was a rather romantic concept – that a desert often associated with barrenness could in fact be green and lush. This post is an attempt at looking at Egypt as an example of a country dabbling in large scale irrigate on to green its deserts.
While Egypt has a total land area of 995,450 square kilometers, only 3.7% of that land is arable (World Bank 2018). The other 96.4% of total land is dominated by a desert plateau. The bright spot to Egypt's geography lies in the area close to the Nile Delta where fertile soils lie. Consequently, high agricultural yields and the mild Egyptian winters enable year-round cultivation (USDA 2016).
However, Egypt faces climatic vulnerabilities. Egypt receives little rainfall and is dependent on the Nile for its freshwater (World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal 2018). A study by Siam and Eltahir (2017) uses global climate model simulations and records of precipitation and flow rates, predicting that annual variation of the amount of flow is likely to increase by 50% this century because of climate change.
The Nile river basin itself is vulnerable to climate change:
The natural system is fragile to begin with – 40% of the basin is characterised by arid or semi-arid drylands
Exposure to natural disasters like droughts and flooding that is expected to worsen with climate change
Egypt’s population has been rising by approximately 2 million annually (World Bank 2018). Problem is, arable land is limited and increasingly limited given that 43% of its growing population live in urban centres and almost all live in or near the Nile Valley on fertile Nile delta soils, putting pressure on limited land and water resources. A study by Radwan et al. (2019) found that between 1992-2015, 74,600 hectares of fertile land around the Nile Delta was lost to urban sprawl, threatening food security.
Despite all the burgeoning challenges against Egypt’s agricultural potential, Egypt has found a way to green itself. Agricultural land (as a percentage of land area) has generally increased in recent years (World Bank 2019).
The Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 has managed to capture more greenery popping up in eastern Sahara, west of where the Nile is and generally considered to be extremely dry (NASA’s Earth Observatory 2017).
The Toshka Project
Egypt does these megaprojects that seek to green parts of its desert-like conditions. One of these megaprojects is called the Toshka Project. Initiated by now ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak, the ambitious project sought to reclaim and develop 540,000 acres of new farmland by designing a system of canals that would transport water from Lake Nasser for irrigation (Kassim et al. 2018).
In theory, Mubarak also envisioned that these new lands be used to ease population pressures off fertile Nile soils by encouraging 20% of Egypt's population to move there. As an incentive for resettling, lands were sold cheap to college graduates (Rasmussen 2007). At the same time, the new lands could also be used for agriculture by irrigation to alleviate food security pressures.
Because the weather promotes the ripening of fruit such as grapes, strawberries and green beans, if successful, this agricultural project could provide Egypt with a first mover advantage, allowing them to export their produce earlier in the year than its competitors (Kassim et al. 2018).
Challenges
However, to a large extent, the Toshka project is deemed a failure. Corruption and mismanagement are oft cited reasons as to why the project has largely been stalled. When the Toshka project was initiated, the Egyptian government intended for the project to be largely privately funded by investors with public funds exceeding no more than 20-25% of total costs (Lonergan and Wolf 2001). However, farming the Sahara can be relatively unattractive for businesses especially when there are a lack of farmers in that region (TakePart 2016).
Moreover, to expect people to simply uproot, move to a completely different environment, adopt and adapt to a new way of life (albeit with economic incentives) is prohibitively difficult. David Sims (2015), author of Egypt's Desert Dreams: Development or Disaster? is skeptical of Egypt's project. Historically, land reclamation projects involving movement have been generally unsuccessful and Sims doubts that the Toshka project would be any different.
Desert greening critics argue that beyond the high costs of developing new lands, one has to also consider the opportunity costs of doing so - agricultural improvements working on old lands might be a better strategy to adopt.
Even if new lands are developed, there still lies the question of if and where water to sustain these new lands will come from. Rainfall is not in favour of Egypt's agricultural activity (see previous post). Water extracted from Lake Nasser for the Toshka project for instance will still come from the 55.5km^3 allocation as stipulated in the 1959 treaty. Any additional water demand that requires tapping into transboundary water resources will inevitably lead to geopolitical tension (Lonergan and Wolf 2001).
Moreover, the Western Desert is characterised by its high saline levels and the presence of underground aquifers. Because the project requires irrigation, there are concerns that this could lead to contamination thus reducing the accessibility to portable fossil water (Moneim et al. 2014).
Conclusion
While controversial and riddled with challenges in its own right, greening the desert remains an probable strategy for Egypt particularly if they are able to develop a sound approach for long-term technical and economic performance of their agricultural activity. A long term approach however involves fixing broader problems like bureaucratic inertia (which is difficult to fix!) and committing to regular maintenance, usage and acceptance of these irrigation systems.
Nonetheless, the government has been active in encouraging private investments for land reclamation and there continues to be support for agricultural activity in the New Lands. Perhaps this initiative is just a late bloomer.