Egypt turns to strategic water reserves due to Nile flood shortage

CAIRO - 2 June 2017: Egypt has taken an amount of water out of its strategic reserve due to a shortage in the 2016 Nile flood, head of the Reservoirs and Grand Barrages Sector at the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation Abdel Lattif Khaled told Anadolu news agency on Thursday.

“The Nile flood last year was the worst in 113 years, so the government was forced to draw an amount of water out of the strategic reserve of Lake Nasser,” he said.
The official did not mention the volume of water taken; but he denied that the shortage of the Nile flood could be related to the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project.

Egypt has voiced its concern over Ethiopia’s dam construction, as it believes the dam will affect Cairo’s 55.5 billion cubic meter share of the Nile water. However, Addis Ababa said the dam is necessary for its development and would not negatively affect the downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan).

In April, the head of the Reservoirs and Grand Barrages Sector said that Egypt suffers from water scarcity and will face much tougher conditions due to the increasing demand on water as Egypt’s domestic population surpassed 93 million in May.

Egypt’s water resources produce 62 billion cubic meters annually, while the consumption could reach 80 billion cubic meters, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Atti announced in May 2016.

The annual per capita of water supply in Egypt is 600 cubic meters, while the international average is 1,000 cubic meters, according to statistics by the ministry and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).