In Egypt and beyond, a climate crisis as close as the nearest water tap

DAHSHUR, EGYPT; AND AL KOURA, JORDAN - As world leaders gather for a summit on global warming some 300 miles away, Nile Valley farmer Samayni says he has little time to think about climate change.

Standing among his date and mango groves, with the Black Pyramid of Dahshur looming above, in an area where people have farmed for millennia, as he sees it he is simply struggling to make more with a formerly abundant resource. 

“Forget about climate change, rising temperatures, or the ozone – our main problem here is water,” he says, gesturing to a bone-dry irrigation canal near to his farm. While in previous years Nile water would flow down this channel each day, he and other farmers now get irrigation water once every 20 days as part of new allocation rotation.

“We are struggling to continue with less and less water, and our ability to feed ourselves as a people is in danger.”

Here in the Middle East, home to the most water-stressed countries on Earth, conserving and maximizing water in these arid lines has been a careful balancing act since antiquity.

Yet as longer and more frequent droughts, combined with higher temperatures and delayed and reduced rainfall, push many Middle East and North African states into water crises, questions that have vexed the region for decades are becoming matters of national security: Grow wheat or grow your economy? Water increasingly scorching farms or a thirsty population?

The challenges – which scientists widely attribute to climate change as well as to rising human consumption – are prompting a search for fresh solutions, from desalination plants to preventing water-source leakage and evaporation. And the concern about water supply, though varying from one region to the next, is increasingly global in scale – a fact visible in the agenda of COP27, this year’s global climate action summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The summit’s usual headlines about how to curb heat-trapping carbon emissions are joined by a rising focus on how to adapt to climate shifts that are already being seen and felt.

At the conference, Egypt helped announce the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda which, among other goals, calls for “smart, efficient and robust water systems” with a reduction of water loss through leakage and sustainable irrigation systems to be implemented across 20% of global croplands by 2030 “to preserve water availability whilst supporting yield growth.”

In the Middle East, a balancing act

Nowhere is the pressure to adapt more urgent than in Egypt and other nations in this region, as debt-burdened countries scramble to balance development needs with feeding themselves amid Ukraine war-induced grain shortages.

With over-pumping and evaporation of exposed irrigation canals and dams due to rising temperatures, Egypt now faces a water deficit of 21 billion cubic meters per year, according to the Egyptian government. 

Here, 560 cubic meters (150,000 gallons) of water are available per person annually, less than a third of the amount available 50 years ago, according to Egyptian government data. Anything below 1,000 cubic meters per person is defined by the United Nations as water-scarce.

Jordan and Tunisia, which depend solely on rainwater-fed dams and underground water, are facing droughts. Tunisia has less than 400 cubic of meters of water per person annually, and Jordan, less than 90 cubic meters of water per person, making it the second most water-poor country on Earth.  

Last month, leading religious authorities in both countries called for national prayers for rain. Jordan received its first full rain of the year on Tuesday. 

Scarcity has sparked a debate on where and how water is spent. 

In Egypt, 85% of water is reserved for agricultural irrigation, leaving only 15% of water going to urban use, industry, and tourism in the Arab world’s most populous and fastest-growing country. 

Egypt is one of several Arab states that are pushing for greater production of local grains – to overcome a burgeoning food crisis and reliance on Ukraine and Russia – even as their water sources dry up. 

Farmer Samayni, who had three straight years of no mango production due to intense heat waves and a lack of water, says the priorities are clear.  

“You need to put agriculture first. Agriculture should steer the country. We are the ones that feed you, we are the ones that keep the nation together,” he says, “If you don’t water us, we will starve.”

Yet the priority on agriculture has meant more water shortages for villages and cities. 

You think twice about taking a shower”

In Jordan, when a town expands, authorities are often unable or unwilling to extend government-provided water, leaving new homes to rely on private wells. 

Abu Tareq Al Moqdadi, imam of a local mosque next to a cave locals believe Jesus visited, and his family of seven have relied solely on trucked-in water at $50 to $80 a month since they built a home on his father’s land at the outskirts of the northern Jordanian village of Bayt Idis seven years ago. 

Despite government promises and a U.N.-supported program to expand the network to reach this fast-growing neighborhood, they, like many in northern Jordan, remain without water.  

“You think twice about taking a shower, doing laundry, how you do dishes,” Mr. Al Moqdadi says. “Water has become the largest cost and biggest challenge in our daily lives. It brings everything to a halt.” 

In Dhiban, an agricultural town in central Jordan, 50 miles south of Amman, the 35 million cubic meter Mujib reservoir has been dry since April.

“You are constantly under climate stress because you don’t know where the next cup will come from,” says Mohammed Hameida, who works with local youths in Dhiban. He and many residents now rely on private wells. “I am afraid for my children. How will they live?”……CONTINUE READING AT THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR