Water conservation for reclamation projects in Egypt

The scarcity of natural resources associated with population pressures has burdened Egypt’s endeavours to carry out development plans. The Egyptian Government is accordingly integrating activities towards optimising benefits from its scarce resources. This is carried out through promoting water availability and allocating water savings to uses of best returns to water. In this regard, two approaches are adopted to increase water availability, the first might be caricatured as “externally-led” and the second “internally-led” measures. While the former involves attempts to augment water supply through collaboration with Nile Basin countries, the second technique implies a promotion of national water availability according to various measures and inducements. The current paper highlights actual and potential water resources in Egypt as well as efforts to promote their availability vis-a-vis water demand patterns. It also investigates the feasibility of land reclamation as an optimum water use alternative in the country’s water strategy.