الفهرس 
مصادر المياه فى مصر والمنطقة العربية مع ذكر أهم التحدياتيوجد فقط 14 صفحة متاحة للعرض العام
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المستخلص
Thinking in the future awaiting Egypt needs farsightedness, as the current situation
cannot be changed on overnight. A comprehensive scheme should be laid to help
upgrading the sense of citizenship in the mind and heart of every Egyptian. Such sense
can only grow when the vast majority of the people believe that their leaders are working,
first and foremost, for their public interest. Such sense shall encourage every individual
to play an actual role in the development schedule. This is the way followed to develop
countries, rich and poor alike.
Food Security is undoubtedly the most important factor security of all peoples. The
vital mainstay of which is agriculture and agricultural activity as a whole, and due to the
fact that a grave danger is expected to take place in the second and third decades of the
present century for the Arab region in general and the Arab Republic of Egypt, in
particular, from a lack of water resources and erosion of farmland to the Nile Valley as a
result of the steadily increasing population. Thus, There is an urgent need for the strategic
guidance for spreading of the culture of improving water management, rationalizing both
consumption and water recycle, as well as protecting water resources from extravagant
consumption and pollution side by side with the development of water sources.
With reference to the annual report of the Conference ”Arab Forum for Environment
and Development held on 2010,” we find that the most important contents of such report
is summarizing the following fact ”the disaster of water knocks the doors of the Arabs,”
especially since the report warned that the Arab countries by 2015 will face acute water
scarcity. The per capita share of water per year will be reduced to less than 500 m3,
especially if we know that the average per capita globally reaches up to about 6000 m3,
i.e., that the per capita share of Arab water annually would amount to less than 10% of
the world average(1).
Moreover there are thirteen Arab countries are among the poorest of the nineteen state
hydraulically worldwide. This assures the need for effective reforms in policies,
institutions and real strategies, otherwise we are heading for a serious crisis which is the
thirst and hunger, as the scarcity of water is considered an impediment to economic
development and food production, human health and human well-being.
Whereas the surface water supplies are unable to meet the needs of the steadily
growing increase of population and economic development and as groundwater has been
1- Report of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development, 2010, p 7,is available on the Internet at the following link:
www.afedonline.org.
the exploited beyond the safe levels in some countries, leading to a significant decrease in
the level of water layers and caused the contamination of aquifer stores.
Water pollution is considered a major challenge in the region because of increasing the
discharge of water for domestic and industrial wastewater in water bodies , in addition to
pollution by agricultural chemicals , which raises health risks , where the discharge of
more than 43% of the wastewater in the region without treatment , while more than 20%
of them is not recycled, this resulted in the leakage of excessive groundwater in coastal
areas from the intrusion of salt water into aquifer stores(1).
expanding knowledge about groundwater and wetlands, swamps, lakes and river
basins, is essential prerequisite for the management of water resources in a sustainable
manner, and there are many remote sensing technologies that can contribute valuable
information for the management systems of mineral water as a result of human activity
or climate change, and there is a need for more research, which focuses on the
development of local varieties of crops that can resist drought, salinity, and to
manipulate the challenges of water and food security and adapt to climate changes.
Due to fact that the Arab countries cannot afford to lose a DROP of water therefore, their
governments should apply the necessary measures to utilize the available opportunities
to the efficient use of water and switch from flood irrigation systems to more practically
feasible methods,such as drip irrigation,recycling and reuse of water, and the
development of cheap sweetenertechnology, moreover, there is a need for more research
and scientific cooperation at the regional level to meet the challenges of water and food
security and adapt to climate changes.
Indeed the task of achieving international coverage of water supply and health services
has become more challenging because several Arab countries are exercising strict
financial supervision on the public budgets, and the service institutions extends beyond
the technical and financial resources available, which is rarely able to maintain efficient
services to the local inhabitants who are increasing by 2-3% annually, and most of this
increase adds pressure on the cities and countries that are already overpopulated and
plagued by insufficient services(2).
Different Arab countries are attempting different approaches to address the failure to
provide water and sanitation services to poor communities, and take some of the
improvement of services in general, on the assumption that make services available to all
necessary to make them available to the poor. In this respect some of the governments,
Especially in North Africa and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, invite the
private sector to help in this effort but the results are not always successful.
1- Report of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development, 2010, op cit, p 7.
2- Op cit, p 8.
The governments all over the world are responsible for the provision of water
infrastructure, financing, organization and construction; they are doing such work for two
quite clear reasons, namely, the fear of the collapse of the market and concern about the
achievement of social justice.
Many countries in the region have upgraded the decentralization of financial services
delegated to local governments and municipal councils and communities, this process
isstill in its early stages and more must be done to strengthen the ownership of services
and responsibility, especially toward the poor communities.
Governments usually tend to deal with this problem through ascendingprogram for the
projects, suchprogram be centralized in a limited way, but easily designed and
implemented, this procedure may allow the involvement of urgent Operational Agencies,
and instant rewards for the beneficiary communities, but the reliability and sustainability
over the long term may suffer if the implementation of this investment takes place
without an integrated development strategy for the water sector.
The increasing financial burden can be overcome through real institutional reform
capable of improving the efficiency of services, strengthening partnerships with water
users and searching for alternative sources of funding which should include contribution
by water users, and to enable beneficiaries and options participatory with the private
sector, provided that such participatory be carefullydiscussed.
There is another dimension regards the growing interest in better management of
common International Watercourses, most of water resources, surface and groundwater
are shared between different countries located on the banks of rivers.
The equitable sharing has become a keyconcern to reduce potential conflicts on
disputed water rights, this incites calls for efficient use of cooperative and joint
investment along the river basin, and the financial requirements needed to achieve this
goal is beyond the resources available in many countries in the region.
We clarify in the following table comparison for some economic and agricultural data
between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, such as the surface area of the population, area of
agricultural land, their agricultural trade balance and the percentage contribution of
agriculture in GDP.