Coping with water scarcity: The future challenge

Water scarcity problem is an uprising strategic issue irritating planners and decision makers in the arid and semi-arid regions. Indeed, the demand for fresh water is exceeding the supply and will continue to increase with the growth of our population. The observed sever escalation, quantitative and qualitative, in water resources problems, adds environmental dimension to the issue. Non-conventional sources, such as reuse, recycle, deep groundwater, water harvesting, desalinization and others, have become of prime importance in future plans and strategies, and are becoming equal to conventional water. Also, water conservation, demand management, losses control, awareness to change social attitudes, cost recovery, use of appropriate technology, are essential supporting elements for effective and efficient plans and policies. Global warming and climatic changes are important future challenges. The paper discusses the future problem of water scarcity, from the general perspective, with special emphasis on the Arab world. The present politics consider water an important strategic issue to raise problems into crisis and even water wars, in order to serve other purposes than developments. The experience of Egypt’s mega projects, based on the conjunctive use of conventional and non-conventional water resources is stated as examples for the future developments outside the Nile Valley and Delta. Toshka project is an example for surface and groundwater use, and El-Salam Canal project is the example of mixing the Nile water with the drainage water for agriculture expansion. Both projects will apply modern irrigation systems, which is indicated as recommended methods for water conservation. The paper explains the role of research and technology as powerful tools to optimize the use of water, improve efficiencies, performance and select appropriate simple cost effective technologies in coping with water shortages.