Scientists have found that the Nile River Delta is in danger. This river provides a home to 60 million people, and it’s their source of food and water. Also, this delta serves as a stop for migratory birds flying between Africa and other places during migrations. Sadly, pollution, erosion along the coast, and salty water coming up from the sea are making all of these things harder to survive.
Essam Heggy of the USC Viterbi Innovation Fund Arid Climates and Water Research Center did some research, and the results were published in the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) journal Earth’s Future.
Egypt is facing a water crisis, due to the pollution in the Nile River. This river provides all of Egypt’s drinking and irrigation water supply. For decades, people have tried to make up for decreasing amounts of water by recycling wastewater, but not enough research has been done on this method yet.
Heggy said that a lot of people, which is almost the same amount as if California and Florida combined, are living in a place the size of NJ, and the environment there is becoming very polluted. This means that for the past 7,000 years, this beautiful place is now facing significant pollution which can’t be reversed.
Scientists from America and Egypt recently did a research about the dirt on the bottom of two branches of the Nile River. They looked at the amount of certain metals, like cadmium, nickel, chromium, copper, lead and zinc in that dirt.
What they found is that there’s a lot of these metals in this dirt, which means it’s been heavily polluted.
Pollutants come from agricultural runoff, wastewater from towns and factories that haven’t been properly processed. If the water isn’t treated, heavy metals will build up and remain stuck in the river bottom, unlike organic pollutants which disappear with the passage of time.
Building more dams on the Nile may cause heavy metal concentrations to get worse. These mega-dams can change the way the river flows and carries sediment, which means it won’t be able to sweep away any pollutants or contaminants that get stuck at the bottom of the river. This makes them pile up in the Mediterranean Sea over time.
The researchers explained that most of the bad pollution from heavy metals can’t be fixed, but if we do things like research and conservation, we can help slow down how quickly nature is being destroyed. That could help us save the plants and animals in the Nile River Delta region.
Egypt is having a tough time. It has lots of people and not much water, so authorities are struggling to decide what to do. Should they use untreated water to keep the supply of food going or should they protect the Nile River? It’s a hard choice and it will have consequences either way!
Our research shows we need to look more into the impact that not treating water has on our environment, as well as how blocking up rivers affects river turbidity. We need to collect more information and investigate this subject further so those countries near the Nile River Basin are aware of it and can help maintain a healthy state of the Nile River.
A research study was funded by the University of Southern California and NASA in order to find out how increased damming and untreated water reuse can cause permanent and large-scale damage to our environment from heavy metal pollution. The study was published on 7th March 2023 on an Earth’s Future journal.
