Egypt Is Building The World's Largest Artificial River In The Desert

Egypt Is Building The World's Largest Artificial River In The Desert

Imagine you are lost in the hot Western Egyptian desert thirsty and dying then suddenly something green appears on the horizon an oasis the size of a country an oasis that is not supposed to be there because your map from 2023 shows that this area is an arid desert that stretches for 200 kilometers in each direction that is exactly what Egypt is currently building to the southwest of Cairo a river like no other in the world the project is of epic proportions and will be accomplished over several phases the first is scheduled to be completed in 2025 at the most and will turn nearly

6 000 square kilometers of desert into one monstrous gigafarm that encompasses hundreds of kilometers of New Roads residential areas two power stations and the world's biggest wastewater treatment plant and the longest artificial River the second phase will be completed by 2030 at the most and double the size of the reclaimed area raising it to 12 000 square kilometers mind you that we say reclaimed because the land is fertile and merely needs water sustainable farming and care to flourish all of this leads us to wonder why is Egypt spending billions of dollars on this project while they have the immense and magnificent Nile River and how are they already achieving this impressive Mega project in three years instead of 10.

 

Egypt has a problem a very serious and deadly problem it simply does not possess enough water to sustain its exploding population that will hit 115 million people in 2024 nor can it keep 16 of its fertile land Green in fact over the past few years it has been forced to enforce water rationing and even haul Water by trucks to many remote towns and Villages according to the United Nations Egypt has one of the worst water deficits in Africa and could run out of usable Water by 2025.

 

One of the factors that is magnifying this problem is Ethiopia which built near its border with Sudan the Renaissance Dam which is choking the Blue Nile River and reducing the flow to sedan and to a much greater extent Egypt Ethiopia did not build the dam because of water shortages but because they needed to generate electricity this massive dam is such a serious threat to Egypt's water security it almost triggered a war between the two countries even the Dam's location right on the border is a serious threat to Sudan and Egypt because if it collapsed it would cause havoc in these two countries while Ethiopia would experience very little to no damage in fact one of the reasons Egypt is constructing the new Delta project is to mitigate any possible catastrophes if the Renaissance Dam collapsed because the project is connected to the Nile River via Gates and tunnels that would.

 

Absorb any sudden severe rise in the Nile River levels before it reaches the

Northern parts of the country where most Egyptians live in places like the greater Cairo area which has a population of 22.2 million people Egypt is also suffering from climate changeand increased desertification even though as much as 20 percent of the

country is farmable merely five percent is used due to the lack of water and high stress on Water Resources today the country is the world's biggest importer of wheat the second largest importer of yellow corn and the fifth largest importer of cooking oil it also Imports 100 of its needs of lentils eighty percent of beans and 32 percent of sugar these figures Spell catastrophe because in reality Egypt should be exporting all of these Commodities Egypt's agricultural sector is also very important since it contributes to the country's gross domestic product by 14 percent representing 28 percent of job opportunities and 55 percent of employment in the countryside millions of Egyptian families that account for nearly 40 million people rely on agriculture livestock farming and food stuff Industries as their source of income this makes the new Delta Project indescribably important as it will enable 5 million families to maintain a reliable and secure source of income more than twenty thousand new graduates are also expected to work full-time in maintaining the Project's related facilities such as power stations water infrastructure wastewater treatment plants and other project related engineering and administrative jobs contrary to what many think the new Delta project does not aim to use the Nile River water for irrigation they are thinking ahead and relying on recycling residential commercial and agricultural Wastewater in a new Under Construction facility called The alham Water Treatment Plant which is bound to supply as much as 7.5 million cubic meters of water for the project per day with the rest of the needed water coming from two other wastewater treatment plants in 6^th of October City near Giza in addition to underground reservoirs seawater desalination plants will not be built for the project due to the high cost the Project's connection to the Nile River is for emergencies only and as we said earlier it is a safety measure in case something wrong happens to the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which can drown large swaths of Egypt unless water is diverted elsewhere mind you that the 114 kilometer long artificial river which is expected to provide approximately 10 million cubic meters of water per day is on land higher than the Nile river which means it cannot feed into the flow unless the Nile water levels rise by a few meters which would lead large emergency gates to open to absorb the excess water one might think such a project was planned in months or a couple of years at the most however it has been in the planning since 2006 because the amount of research involved was quite monstrous after all we are talking about a huge area that will house millions of people power stations hundreds of food stuff factories commercial areas and endless colossal swaths of farmland and it all relies on a steady and secure source of water to remain alive in a region where water is extremely scarce as far as we can tell the project seems to be well on its way to completion on time and budget the project is located in the Dubai axis area which was pretty much a mere desert before the project began with only one main Highway running parallel to it luckily this highway leads to the airport of Alexandria in the north and cairo's International Airport one of the most exciting areas of the project is the 114 kilometers long artificial River dubbed the longest in the world that is on average about 70 meters or more wide in reality this river is 170 kilometers long since it will be connected to a new Canal from the old delot which feeds the alham Wastewater Plant that in turn will feed the new artificial River with fresh water this amazing artificial river which is also called all River consists of 148 kilometers of open canals made from concrete 22 kilometers of underground pipelines with a diameter of up to 3 meters 15 lift stations because some areas are higher than others 39 bridges for cars and pedestrians over the main river and open diversions and artificial ground level reservoirs as for the al-hama multi-purpose Wastewater

Plant it is the largest triple treatment plant for agricultural Wastewater in the world it consists of three treatment units Each of which produces 2.5 million cubic meters of treated water per day the underground reservoirs which will also contribute to the project are of Epic Proportions they have discovered a sea of underground water under the Western desert of Egypt this colossal underground reservoir is more than 2 000 meters deep but feeds other shallower reservoirs that are anywhere between 100 and 400 meters deep with very is thickness that ranges from 120 to 900 meters this means that more than 100 wells will be available to provide as much as 2.5 million cubic meters of fresh underground water for the project several factories for the production of foodstuffs are also under construction we expect Egypt to return to its previous glory and become a net food commodities and food stuff exporter several multinational corporations from China and elsewhere are already capitalizing on the project for future gains and expansion such a project would probably cost 50 billion dollars in a place like America or Europe however Egypt has managed to find efficient and sustainable methods to make it a reality at a fraction of that cost and of course the wages and materials in Egypt are much cheaper which explains the 5.2 billion dollars budget.