Today, the Faculty of Agriculture, Menoufia University discussed issues of water security in Egypt and its impact on the economic and agricultural side in Egypt
This is under the auspices of Dr. Ahmed Farag El-Kased, President of Menoufia University, and the supervision of Dr. Sobhi Sharaf, Vice President for Community Service and Environmental Development, and Dr. Ayman Hafez, Dean of the Faculty, and in the presence of Dr. Ibrahim Darwish, Vice Dean for Community Service and Environmental Development, and Dr. Elham Ghoneim, Vice Dean for Education and Student Affairs.
In which Dr. Essam Rashad, Director General of Agricultural Extension in Menoufia, and Dr. Islam El-Anany, Head of Laboratories of the Drinking Water and Wastewater Authority in Menoufia, lectured.
The symposium dealt with the efforts exerted in the development of water resources in light of the challenges facing the Egyptian state in meeting the needs of the steady population increase. Egypt is the first Arab country in terms of population, the third in Africa and number 14 in the world in terms of population, in addition to the state's interest in the repercussions of the water file to ensure the sustainability of development.
The symposium also touched on the potential effects of climate change and the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which exacerbates the current water crisis, through which the lecturers indicated that there are many internal and external trends and challenges facing the country, which calls for taking into account the sixth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which These include “ensuring sustainable water and sanitation management for all.”
And what is intended to be achieved by 2030 is that the water security file has become one of the files that have attracted the attention of the decision-maker because of its huge impacts and repercussions on the Egyptian state in all security, political, social and economic fields.
In the same context, the symposium shed light on several important axes, including indicators of Egyptian water security, the challenges of Egyptian water security, and the efforts of the Egyptian state in managing the file of water security and put forward proposals to maximize the use of Egyptian water resources.
The symposium also called on the attendees to consider more considerations and importance of the Nile River and the national projects that are based on its presence and preservation because it provides about 97% of Egypt's annual water needs, while the percentage of water dependence on other sources such as rain, groundwater, and desalination of agricultural and sanitary drainage water. , about 3%.
The symposium called for the need to follow modern irrigation methods, especially when cultivating basic crops such as wheat and cultivating it in terraced ways, to reduce the amount of water used to irrigate the wheat crop from 1,800 cubic meters to 1,300 cubic meters.