Egypt’s water scarcity reaches 140%, says ministry

Egypt’s index of water scarcity has reached 140 per cent, the country’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced yesterday.

The head of the ministry’s planning sector, Eman Sayed Ahmed, told local media that the current index value indicated that the country “suffers from severe water stress and shortage”.

“The ministry is doing its best to fulfill Egypt’s water needs,” Ahmed said.

Water stress, she noted, was an indicator of the state’s efforts to pursue the sustainable development strategy.

The country’s water minister, Mohamed Abdel Ati, recently said that his country was experiencing “scarcity in water resources”.

The water stress index determines how each country manages its water resources. It is being calculated by dividing the total renewable water resources across the total population, with a per capita renewable water resources of about 600 cubic metres annually.

Egypt has been struggling to reach an agreement with Ethiopia and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Cairo fears will negative impact its access to Nile waters amounts to 55.5 billion cubic metres. Addis Ababa has been continuously stressing that the dam will harm neither Egypt nor Sudan and that it will generate electricity that will help Ethiopia eradicate poverty and promote development.

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