Global project 931-1113 · 1980–1987 · natural resources and biodiversity · International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

Many of Egypt's environmental problems relate to the compounded effects of intensive irrigation, extreme aridity, and very high population densities. This profile inventories Egypt's natural resources and assesses their degradation, especially with respect to the worsening problems of soil damage, water pollution, and water-borne diseases. Soil damage and loss from acute salinization affect at least 28% of the country's irrigated soils. Salinization, together with associated waterlogging, reduces agricultural output by some 30% in damaged areas; poor irrigation management is responsible for much of the current situation. Egypt's water pollution problems - which particularly affect the areas north of Cairo, where most of the population lives - result from several factors: salinized drainage water from irrigated areas, agricultural pesticides, industrial effluents, sewage disposal, and overpumping of aquifers (permitting the entrance of salt water and contamination from the Mediterranean into the water table). In the northern delta, for example, water pollution has caused an 85% drop in fish catch in Lake Mareotis. malaria are major health concerns. Some 30%-50% of the population suf

Source: DEC abstract, PN-ABC-911 (1980). This is the source's own text, not a cited summary of the documents.