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Egypt Is Building a New Nile

Egypt Is Building a New Nile

geox

Comments (65)

  • culi
    It's practically a project of the Egyptian military who will mostly own the land. They will grow cash crops for export to gain a source of income.This will also drain the ancient and non-renewable Nubian Sandstone Aquifer. This is water that has been trapped for thousands of years. It is the world's largest fossil water system and is of immense scientific value.Not to mention the historic Nile Delta wetlands that will be lost from diversion and the massive increases in CO2 emissions necessary to pump the water at the elevation of the desert (which is higher than the Nile basin). Also the inevitable salination of soil means any economic benefits to this project are on a countdown.
  • ojbyrne
    This article has several passages repeated verbatim. Either bad AI or bad editing, not really a great advertisement for the product (“Brilliant”) it seems to be selling.Example: “The construction of the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, brought clear benefits. It provided a steady supply of hydroelectric power and allowed water to be regulated for year-round irrigation.” appears twice, word for word.
  • RetroTechie
    Wiki:"A feddan (Arabic: فدّان, romanized: faddān) is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only non-metric unit which remained in use following the adoption of the metric system. A feddan is divided into 24 kirat (Arabic: قيراط, qīrāt), with one kirat equalling 175 square metres."So 2.2M feddan works out to 9240 km^2. That is: roughly same area as a square with 96 km sides."Officials indicate the system will utilise roughly 10 million cubic metres of surface water daily alongside approximately 7.5 million cubic metres of treated drainage water per day, reflecting Egypt’s growing reliance on advanced water-recycling and smart-irrigation technologies amid mounting regional water pressures."Article isn't clear on where either component comes from. Not an amount you could divert from somewhere without huge environmental effects elsewhere.(Edit: quote is from the ME Observer article a commenter linked below. Original post seems to have more details)Anyway sounds like an ambitious project. And understandable given Egypt's population vs. resources pressures (esp. water).
  • nradov
    The article makes a good point about food imports to Egypt. I think a lot of people don't realize that Egypt has been an innocent victim of Russia's invasion of Ukraine which disrupted wheat exports.Recent strikes by Ukraine on Russian oil refineries are in turn disrupting Russian grain harvests due to shortages of diesel fuel. While this is a legitimate defensive tactic by Ukraine, as a side effect it's likely to cause further food price inflation in Egypt.
  • daedrdev
    This is not the first project like this Egypt has tried. All have failed
  • anon
    undefined
  • betaby
    With a such rapid demographic growth they have no choice. The population of Egypt doubled in last ~35 years. (quadrupled in the last ~60 years)
  • gl-prod
    Egypt is trapped in mega projects death spiral
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0
    I don't believe it.
  • JumpCrisscross
    Do we have a better source? This article contains repeating text which makes me suspect copy-pasted slop.EDIT: This [1] is better.[1] https://meobserver.org/nutrition/2026/05/18/egypts-new-delta...
  • hparadiz
    This could completely terraform the weather for the entire region. Possibly even increasing the amount of rain in the middle east overall.
  • ButlerianJihad
    Egypt is also hard at work transforming the Sinai Plain and the vicinity of Mount Sinai itself, into a tourist magnet, and a thriving hotel/resort region. The monks of St. Katherine's monastery are nonplussed about these developments.(Many monasteries and convents in modern times are renowned, and/or an open secret, for their peaceful hospitality, and gladly welcome pilgrims and tourists for overnight stays, especially in places where the hotels are in short supply, and especially in places like Republic of Ireland, where the monasteries' populations are dwindling, and losing donors, while the tourist trade is stronger every day...)
  • andsoitis