The Nile view from Mahmoud Abu Zeids office is one of the best in the nations capital, serving up a flawless panorama of tranquil blue water meandering through a silent metropolis, with just enough greenery to offset the fact that Cairo has been grossly overbuilt. But head a few floors down to the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources ground level and things are different: Imbabas chaotic afternoon rush-hour traffic pierces the silence as throngs of pedestrians joust with cars clamoring through the streets.

The deceptive calm of the scene from above is in perfect harmony with Abu Zeids demeanor sedate on the outside, in turmoil deeper down. The minister is acutely aware that urban sprawl is now at the core of the problems he must tackle, for while his ministrys portfolio is not in the limelight as much as economy, interior or foreign affairs, the management of Egypts diminishing water resources is one of the most critical challenges the nation will face in the coming decades.

If issues concerning water scarcity, quality and management are not properly addressed, Egypt will be confronted with a major food and water crisis by the year 2025, Abu Zeid says.

Limited water resources have been a problem since 1959, but until now we have been able to cope with the situation. The exponential population growth we have witnessed during the past two decades has, however, made the situation critical. We will not be able to meet the increased demand unless we tap into new resources and change our consumption patterns, he adds.

Under a 1959 water-sharing agreement with the other African nations that share the Nile Basin, Egypt is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Nile water each year. The 1959 agreement was a follow-on to a 1929 deal governing the use of Nile water signed by Egypt and Britain, which acted on behalf of its then-African colonies, a list of nations that now includes the independent states of Kenya and Tanzania.

This 55.5 billion is basically all we have to meet our agricultural, domestic and industrial needs, says Dr. Ahmad Fahmy, director of the Nile Research Institute (NRI), an affiliate of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources National Water Research Center (NWRC).

Mohsen Allam/Egypt Today Mahmoud Abu Zeid, minister of water resources

Apart from the Nile, there is no other surface water in Egypt to speak of. Underground aquifers have not yet been fully developed, and desalination projects are too expensive to undertake on a massive scale, Fahmy adds.

With a population of just 30 million in 1959, the 55.5 billion figure, giving the nation 2,100 cubic meters of water per person per year, must have seemed more than enough to the leaders of the July Revolution. Today, with a population of 70-72 million that grows at a clip of a little over 2 percent each year, Egypt has just 792 cubic meters of water per capita each year.

The commonly accepted international definition of water scarcity is anything less than 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.

We are already well below that figure, says Fahmy, who estimates Egypt needs at least 80 bcm per year for the foreseeable future. The nations population is expected to hit 90 million by 2020, and the rapid expansion of urban areas that will inevitably accompany this growth will stretch water resources even further and increase the rate of pollution of what was once a pristine supply.

Abu Zeid says both the expansion of the private sector and the states ambitious land reclamation projects are also making greater demands on the countrys static water supply. Projects like Toshka, the desert megaventure, will divert a good part of the Niles water: Egypt hopes to expand its total arable land by an additional 3.4 million feddans by 2017, a plan that will consume roughly 20.8 bcm of water every year, according to a Ministry of Irrigation report.

Egypt Today Archives The Nile is significantly cleaner in Aswan than in Cairo.

Where is it all going to come from? No one seems to know, but Abu Zeid, arguably one of the most active ministers in Cabinet, cant be accused of taking matters lightly. He has recently launched a number of initiatives including water conservation projects, public education and awareness campaigns, and water research programs. On the regional level, he has been actively courting both the African Nile Basin countries and (more recently) our Arab neighbors, trying to spark a dialogue on the regions water resources problem.

Some Nile Basin countries, meanwhile, are rattling their diplomatic sabers, claiming Egypt already takes too much of the Niles precious water. A revision of the colonial 1929 and 1959 agreements, they claim, is absolutely in order.

The result: Access to fresh water has quickly become one of the nations top national security issues.

Sixty-seven percent of the total fresh water resources in the Arab world come from outside the region, says Abu Zeid, touching on the very issue analysts say should be sounding alarm bells in Egypts National Security Council. Pundits are predicting that while wars are now being influenced by and fought over oil, nations will fight over water in the not terribly distant future.

If the status quo remains, its not difficult to see where we are headed, Abu Zeid predicts.

Vanessa Vick/Associated Press With steady conflict already ravaging Basin states like Uganda (above), President Hosni Mubarak has made closer economic cooperation with, development aid to, NBI countries a matter of national security policy.

The ABCs of the AWC

Abu Zeid has been demanding for years that Arab nations face up to the enormity of the challenge. The alternative, he says, is too grim to imagine: Starvation and dehydration on the home front while soldiers try to secure new sources of water, and once-underfunded scientists scramble to make up for lost time.

After years of careful maneuvering, Abu Zeid finally hosted a regional meeting of Arab government officials, water specialists and international donor agencies in Cairo this past April. The result: the launch of the Arab Water Council (AWC).

Abu Zeid, who also led the charge to set up the World Water Council (WWC) in 1994, dismisses critics who claim that an AWC will be useless, because although all Arab countries are dealing with severe water shortages, they do not share the same resources (with the obvious exceptions of Egypt and Sudan).

We have been thinking about an Arab Water Council for a few years now, the minister says. But it only became a solid proposal two years ago during the first regional conference Perspectives on Arab Water Cooperation, organized by the NWRC. Out of that meeting came the unanimous decision that there was an urgent need for practical cooperation between Arab countries to exchange ideas, experiences, and knowledge.

Claude Stemmelin/Egypt Today

But will it be another Arab paper tiger?

I dont think much can be accomplished by merely meeting at an annual conference and issuing a list of recommendations, Abu Zeid agrees. We need concrete decisions, and action must be taken based on a scientific thought process.

That, he says, is why he pushed for the AWC despite an earlier Arab League decision to establish a permanent Council of Ministers to address water issues.

From our previous experience with the WWC, we felt that it would be better to include all the stakeholders so that ideas can be better communicated, Abu Zeid explains, noting that the AWC will include representatives from ministries of water, economy and agriculture; NGOs; consultants; researchers; contractors; and international environmental, research and donor agencies, both Arab and non-Arab.

We want the [councils] decisions to be spontaneous and informed, addressing issues that are of real concern to the member states, says Walid Abdel Rahman, a water researcher at King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia. I think the AWC will fill the current void we have concerning regional water policies, he adds.

Abd Raouf/Associated Press From left: Ahmed Maher and Atef Ebeid with Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Taha.

The 450 or so delegates at the AWCs founding assembly struck a committee with members drawn from all 22 Arab nations to return a final framework agreement and bylaws to the full group within a year.

Although the AWC will have government officials among its members, we want this organization to deal with society more than anything else, which is why we shied away from the original council of ministers idea in the Arab League, Abu Zeid explains.

Other Arab nations are finally sitting up to take note.

We think that the future is frightful, said Jordanian Minister of Agriculture and Water Hazem El-Nazer in an address to the AWCs founding assembly. In four years, we [the Arab World] will have a total water deficit of 170 million cubic meters. As a result, irrigation will not be possible in some areas, which will have dire consequences for food security in the region.

The Arab world already imports between 30 and 50 percent of its total food needs, depending on whose estimate you believe. In Egypt, the figure for staples stands as high as 30-35 percent for grains.

Omar Mohsen/Egypt Today

What we saw during the two-day conference was real concern about the situation amongst all the participants, says Abu Zeid.

Former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadek El-Mahdi, who was among the AWCs launch meeting panelists, agrees that the magnitude of the looming water crisis calls for a new approach.

This initiative to establish an Arab Water Council is part of a new phase in international affairs management, which tries to involve the population at large, El-Mahdi says. People normally treat water like air as if its free and perpetual. We have to change this mindset.

Ultimately, what we hope to achieve is a regional dialogue, Abu Zeid adds. In the 10 years since its inception, the WWC has managed to put water on the top of the international agenda, he continues, smiling as he puts the final touches on a letter to the Crown Prince of Holland.

Hes very interested in water management, Abu Zeid says of the Crown Prince. Its very encouraging to see this type of awareness. Water is a priority internationally, and we want to achieve the same type of thing regionally. I want to get people to talk about water issues and realize that conserving it is vital to our future survival.

This is the start.

Funding for the AWC should come largely from the World Bank, UNESCO and the UNDP, as well as Saudi Arabias Islamic Development Bank, which has funded a number of large-scale water projects in Africa and Asia since 1976. But Abu Zeid is adamant that Arab governments kick in as well by earmarking more funds for both projects and water science research.

While the average mature economy spends roughly 1.4 percent of its GDP on research and development activities, Arab governments set aside an average of just 0.2 percent.

Geography

It is true that the challenges that we [Arab nations] face are not exactly the same, but we are all living in an arid region, Abu Zeid says. Water and food security are very specific to the Arab world. It is good to meet, discuss, share experiences and get the advice of international groups like the World Bank, UNESCO and the UNDP, who will also be amongst our members.

Nadia Saleh agrees. The high-profile head of the Alexandria Water Authority says for all their differences, Arab nations share common concerns and can learn from experience in the Gulf.

We have the Nile. Iraq has the Euphrates. Saudi Arabia has its desalination plants. But when we are in contact with other countries, ideas will be shared. For example, we may want to look into desalination as an option for the future. Saudi Arabias experience in this field would no doubt be of benefit to us, she says.

But critics skeptical about the AWC point to the questionable efficiency of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), the organization that includes the 10 African nations that share the waters of the Nile. Formed in 1995 by Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, the NBI has been sharply criticized for its heavy reliance on donor agencies and the lethargic pace with which it implements projects that have been under study for years.

A joint statement issued in March 2004 by the NBIs Council of Ministers, based in Entebbe, Uganda, said, We own the NBI it belongs to our countries and our people it is not an initiative of donors. We are having discussions at the highest level. We meet often and know each other well. We all believe that by moving together we can look forward to peace and prosperity and not backward to dispute and conflict. We can develop the benefits of the Nile together and we can share those benefits in equitable ways.

A little over a year ago, however, the Kenyan and Tanzanian ministers of water resources were questioning Egypts right to the 55.5 bcm per year of Nile water it presently uses. The furthest downstream, Egypt stands accused of taking more than its fair share.

More recently, several opposition politicians and members of parliament in Tanzania and Uganda have raised the specter of war by suggesting their countries should unilaterally dam portions of the Nile to prevent Egypt from continuing to unfairly profit from its waters.

These claims are absolutely not true, says NRI director Fahmy. The water in the Nile is the result of heavy rainfall in several of the Nile basin countries. The heaviest amount of rain falls in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. The 55.5 billion cubic meters that Egypt uses represents a mere 3 percent of the total rainfall in the region.

With steady conflict already ravaging Sudan, northern Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC, President Hosni Mubarak has made closer relations with NBI countries a matter of national security policy. After a late-spring meeting with Prime Minister Atef Ebeid and the ministers of defense, interior, foreign affairs, information, and irrigation and water resources, Mubarak declared that economic cooperation and African development was a matter of national security.

Since then, Mubarak has offered to extend new development aid to NBI countries (some $2.6 billion in technical assistance has already been spent, including a recent grant of $13.5 million to Uganda last year) and is encouraging the nations private sector to invest in Nile nations. More recently, Abu Zeid has toured Uganda, Kenya and Burundi to spearhead talks aimed at reducing tensions.

According to Fahmy, the Upper Riparian states that are complaining are the ones that receive the most plentiful rainfall.

They are not dependent on the Nile for agriculture. It is not our problem that they are not utilizing the rainfall properly, he says, explaining that NRI figures indicate 84 bcm of water flow downstream to the High Dam every year. Egypt uses 55.5 billion, Sudan gets 18.5 billion and the remaining 10 billion evaporates.

We are doing all we can to cooperate with the Nile basin countries, says Abu Zeid. New assistance packages have been pledged to Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Egypt was the first to establish a system for properly utilizing the Nile waters. We use the river to feed 70 million people, while some states have both the Nile and abundant rainfall, but still cant manage to feed 10 or 15 million. I think we can definitely offer our expertise in this area, says Fahmy.

Experts believe that Ethiopia, at the headwaters of the Blue Nile, the source of at least 83 percent of the Nile water that reaches Egypt, will play a pivotal role in future water policies in the region. According to Fahmy, Ethiopia can increase its water volume and govern the regularity of its flow rate by constructing a series of small dams. Funding has delayed the projects, but he expects they will soon be underway.

Some analysts, though, fear dams in Ethiopia will decrease the amount of water reaching Egypt and Sudan effectively giving the Ethiopians a tap to control the flow into Egypt at will.

The dams will not affect our water supply, Fahmy counters. On the contrary, they will stabilize the amount of sediment that the rain in Ethiopia causes to fall into the Nile. The sediment which accumulates in Lake Nasser has in the past caused us problems.

We are encouraging such projects to move forward and providing technical assistance wherever we can, he adds.

Egypts efforts to reduce tensions are probably too new to bear fruit, even as some Egyptian investors have responded to Mubaraks call to find business opportunities in Africa. Despite continued complaints from Upper Riparian governments complaints vocal enough to have stirred debate in the Peoples Assembly in May and June Abu Zeid denies trouble is actively brewing in the basin.

Conservation

Abu Zeid knows Egypt cant address its water problem by focusing exclusively on foreign policy issues; according to his own ministrys figures, more than 40 percent of the water consumed in Egypts urban centers goes to waste. Bad habits, lack of an efficient and transparent water pricing system, and a simple absence of awareness have caused the population at large to treat water as if it has no value.

Thats why managing demand is fast becoming the key to balancing the competing needs of population growth, industrialization and land reclamation.

We are currently doing several different things, as has been summarized in our national water strategy, which envisions the development of the countrys water resources through 2017 and looks to more efficient use of what is available while simultaneously expanding water resources, says Abu Zeid.

Recycling wastewater and agricultural drainage water has been relatively successful of late.

Our water multiplier is currently at two, meaning that we are using all our water twice, says Abu Zeid proudly. This is mainly being done with agricultural drainage water. We select drains where water quality is reasonable and we mix it with Nile water. Although we are working toward increasing the water multiplier, I think two is good. This is a number that we have gradually worked up to since the 1960s.

Abu Zeid explains that in some European countries, the water multiplier is up to five. When the water has been recycled that many times, however, it can not be used for drinking. It is safe only for industrial, agricultural and household use.

But some farmers have complained that the recycled water the ministry is asking them to use is not up to the standard needed for irrigation.

This claim has been made because sometimes water is taken from polluted or highly saline drains rather than the drains that we have designated, Abu Zeid counters. If our recycling regulations are abided by, the recycled water is up to standard even when it is used alone [without Nile water].

The Ministry is also convincing farmers to switch to more efficient irrigation systems.

Growing tomatoes with traditional irrigation systems may require 40 percent more water than growing tomatoes with drip systems, the minister notes. If we can improve the efficiency of water delivery for irrigation by only 10 percent, we will double the amount of water available for drinking.

Crop selection is also an issue, he says. We must limit [the cultivation of] food commodities that consume excessive amounts of water, such as sugar cane and rice.

The ministry is also hoping to make better use of underground water resources. According to Ministry of Water Resources figures, 7.5 bcm of the countrys water supply each year comes from groundwater sources in the Delta and Nile Valley, while 1.1 billion cubic meters come from Sinai and the Oases. By 2017, the ministry hopes to increase the amount of groundwater coming from the Nile Valley to 13 bcm per year and water from the desert to 4.0 bcm annually.

The figures are ambitious, but we feel that we can rise to the challenge, says Abu Zeid. We have no other choice.

Its like working with a limited household budget, Fahmy adds. In order to make ends meet, you have to economize and find clever ways to get more for your money. We are looking into every possible solution to maximize our water resources. There are even projects underway to try and minimize the effects of evaporation in Lake Nasser where 10 bcm evaporate each year.

In a page out of science fiction book, Fahmy explains the NRI is looking into a spray that could slow the evaporation, but safety is a factor: Ninety-five percent of our water comes from Lake Nasser, he says, so we must be 100 percent sure that none of these measures would contaminate the water in any way.

Its exactly the kind of inventive spirit the nation will have to harness if we want to prevent our children and grandchildren from having to fight a war not over land, but the rivers that run through it. et