Desert reclamation projects will always fail unless they can cater to the needs of average Egyptians, writes Rushdi Said* The history of the land use of the Egyptian desert has been closely related to the problem of overcrowding in the Nile Valley, a matter which has haunted concerned Egyptians since the beginning of the 20th century when the population began to increase at rates far beyond what the limited land of the Nile Valley could offer. Until the early 1950's, the idea of expanding into the vast and under-populated areas of the Sudan seemed to offer a solution to that problem. Until that time, the Sudan had been considered an integral part of Egypt. That solution was no longer possible when the Sudan declared its independence from Egypt in a plebiscite in 1956. Since then, Egyptians have been attempting to expand their living space by spreading out into the surrounding deserts to make room for the burgeoning population. Unfortunately, these attempts were not part of a long-range and well-researched plan and they all failed in reducing population pressure on the Nile Valley. After a spurt of reclamation projects aimed at developing the long-neglected alluvial lands of the Nile Valley during the first half of the 20th century, Egypt turned its effort to expanding its agricultural lands into the deserts that fringe the valley by extending to them canals from the river. This phase, which started from the mid-20th century, extended until the present day despite overwhelming evidence that this effort was costly relative to gains. As recently as the late 1990's, Egypt was still clinging to the idea that it could wrest agricultural lands from the desert by supplying them with water from the Nile. The recently- dug canals of El-Hamam along the Mediterranean coast, El-Salam in Sinai and Toshka in Nubia are but some examples of this effort. All are facing difficulties and none have attracted a substantial number of people to live in the lands they were supposed to reclaim. Projects to reclaim agricultural lands from the desert were also attempted by the use of ground water that is known to exist under many stretches of the deserts of Egypt. The most important experiment in this regard was the New Valley Project that aimed at reclaiming new lands in the Western Desert Oases. The experiment was well run and devoted a large part of its effort to conducting systematic scientific research on the many aspects of desert agriculture. The nature of the ground water reservoir received particular attention and was proved to be limited and non- replenishing. The project lasted for about 15 years from 1959 until the mid-1970s after having failed in achieving its initial goals of reclaiming substantial areas of agricultural land. In addition to dwindling water resources, there were the problems of drainage and desalination, as well as the encroachment of sand dunes. The second desert reclamation experiment was along the Cairo-Alexandria desert road in the 1970s, but it is starting to suffer from the lowering of the water table and the consequent added expense of tapping water from greater depths, which usually carries more salinity. In both the New Valley and Cairo-Alexandria desert road experiments, no sizeable body of people moved to settle in the newly reclaimed areas. Desert agriculture is a capital-intensive endeavour. Projects to make use of the Egyptian desert then turned into a building spree of second homes for the wealthy along the Mediterranean coast to the west of Alexandria. This was followed by another spree of hotel building along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez for the benefit of the tourist sector. Both endeavours did not attract large numbers of people to settle down along both coasts. Mediterranean coastal residences are used during the summer season and left deserted the rest of the year while those along the Red Sea are intended for tourists; they do not have the infrastructure -- the schools or affordable housing -- that could attract Egyptians to settle there. A glance at the national census shows that the number of inhabitants of desert governorates has not increased substantially during the past 10 years. Another spree of expansion into the desert occurred around the major cities of Egypt. Satellite towns sprang up, many of which were intended to be the site of industrial zones or commercial centres. All failed to attract a substantial number of people to settle in them for lack of transportation and of suitable housing for the average Egyptian whose income cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, afford the prices prevailing in today's housing market. It is clear from this quick survey that none of the aforementioned projects has succeeded in alleviating population pressures on the Nile Valley and Delta. The projects did not attract any sizeable number of people to leave the valley and settle in them. They were all improvised projects that did not form part of an overall plan for the development of the desert. They all failed to satisfy the two conditions that are essential to building viable living centres in the deserts of Egypt, namely the creation of job opportunities in the planned new extensions and the building of affordable housing. The well-publicised project of Farouk El-Baz does not address these two conditions and for this reason it will most assuredly fail in fulfilling its goal. The project assumes that the building of a road across the desert will attract people to live along its track. Had this been the case, the desert would have bloomed long ago, as a network of desert roads has existed for decades without attracting anyone to live around them. Furthermore, there could have been no worse track to chose than the one proposed by El-Baz for his road; it runs mostly along a desolate, stony plateau that has no groundwater potential. The desert of Egypt needs an overall plan to be executed over the years to make use of its space for industrial development. The little groundwater that it holds should be preserved for use in this endeavour and not in agriculture. Agriculture should be restricted to the fertile lands of the Nile Valley and the Delta, which should be administered as an environmentally managed domain. All the industrial centres that exist at present in this domain should be moved, over the years, to the newly planned desert industrial centres. The centres should be built one by one and should be planned to offer affordable and attractive housing. They should be built to make use of the groundwater potential of the area as well as the energy resources that have been recently discovered in northern Egypt. Once the centres are developed and are ready to be inhabited they can be connected by road. Roads, after all, are not ends in themselves. * The writer is former head of the Egyptian Geological Survey Authority.
