The government entrusted the ministries of water resources and irrigation, agriculture and land reclamation, tourism, electricity and petroleum with preparing an economic study to translate the proposal of "development path", by Dr Farouq Al-Baz, into a bill to be referred to the cabinet. The project will take ten years to be carried out, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mahmoud Abu Zeid said. In some statements yesterday following the inauguration of the regional forum for underground water challenges in Egypt, Abu Zeid said a study is underway to transfer water from Sheikh Zayed Canal to one of the project's nine horizontal corridors. In addition, studies are being made on the size of the underground water in the area of the nine corridors in order to help establish the agricultural development programs. The water of Sheikh Zayed Canal will be only used for drinking and industry, especially as the design of Mubarak giant station in Toshka allows increasing the number of alternative stations to save 10% of their water efficiency for future usages, Abu Zeid said. Egypt has some 50.1 billion cubic feet of underground water, of which 60% are used, said the minister, adding more can be used especially in the Eastern Desert and the Delta. A joint authority was established between Egypt, Sudan, Chad and Libya to study the possibility of using the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) to achieve fair distribution among the four countries. Underground water on the Egyptian-Israeli borders is as deep as 2000 meters, said the minister. This needs a high cost to dig wells in those areas, he added, calling on the private sector to use underground water. During its last meeting, the cabinet entrusted the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation with preparing three studies on an integrated long-term plan to develop irrigation in Al-Wadi and Delta lands, in addition to preparing a study on the future of water resources till 2050.
