A Socio-Ecological Investigation of Options to Manage Groundwater Degradation in the Western Desert, Egypt

Abstract

Under increasing water scarcity, collective groundwater management is a global concern. This article presents an interdisciplinary analysis of this challenge drawing on a survey including 50 large and small farms and gardens in a village in an agricultural land reclamation area on the edge of the Western Desert of Egypt. Findings revealed that smallholders rely on a practice of shallow groundwater use, through which drainage water from adjacent irrigation areas is effectively recycled within the surface aquifer. Expanding agroindustrial activities in the surrounding area are socio-economically important, but by mining non-renewable water in the surrounding area, they set in motion a degradation process with social and ecological consequences for all users in the multi-layered aquifer system. Based on the findings of our investigation, we identify opportunities for local authorities to more systematically connect available environmental information sources and common pool resource management precedents, to counterbalance the degradation threat.

A three-dimensional palaeo-reconstruction of the groundwater salinity distribution in the Nile Delta Aquifer

“…Groundwater extractions mainly occur in the South-West. This area, near Wadi El Natrun, was appointed a reclamation area by the Egyptian Government in 1990 and since then has seen a rapid increase in extraction rates (King and Salem, 2012;25 Switzman et al, 2015). This was implemented in the numerical model by including extraction wells (locations and rates) that were in the RIGW database (Nofal et al, 2018) for the last 30 years of the simulation.…”

Vegetation Composition of Abu Tartur Mining Region (Western Desert, Egypt): Biological and Phytochemical Survey of Some Studied Taxa

“…Groundwater in mining region is considered the sole source for water used mainly for mining activities and other human purposes [18]. The plant vegetation of study area depends essentially on the seepage from water line tubes (Fig.…”

Assessing the Cost of Groundwater Degradation in the Urbanizing Desert Area of Wadi El Natrun

“…The assessment was developed as an academic project, using techniques in environmental assessment that have appeared in the published literature on economic assessment of groundwater degradation in developing countries. The application of the method focused on differentiation of the impacts of degradation amongst large and small farmers, using deep and shallow wells (King and Salem 2012 ) . The objective was to illustrate the social dimension of the common pool resource management challenge (after Ostrom 1990 ;Sekar 2001 ;Shah 2009 ) .…”

“…The objective was to illustrate the social dimension of the common pool resource management challenge (after Ostrom 1990 ;Sekar 2001 ;Shah 2009 ) . As in the previous example, the assessment drew on surveys characterizing local farm budgets for farms of varying sizes (Yehia 2004 ;AFD 2008 ;King and Salem 2012 ) . The focus remained on local agricultural groundwater users, nevertheless, the replacement cost approach and method could also accommodate consideration of costs to other existing groundwater users in the area, including factories, water bottling facilities, and water utilities.…”

“…The trend in increasing costs of degradation to smallholders was affected by international market effects on exchange rates and fuel prices. The cost of groundwater degradation to smallholder farmers was demonstrated to exceed the incomes that they generated from agricultural production (King and Salem 2012 ) . This was contrasted to the situation for larger farmers, whose replacement costs were equal to only a small fraction of the net value of their produce.…”