The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) website https://www.icarda.org/ placed an article written by By Dr. Vinay Nangia, Research Team Leader - Soil, Water, and Agronomy (SWA), and Dr. Mohie El Din Omar, Research Associate – Irrigation and Water Management at ICARDA. The text is reviewing water management issue in Egypt.
Population growth and climate change issues are increasing water usage of the Egypt agriculture that supplied by Nile River with capacity of 55.5 billion cubic meters of yearly water allocation accounting for 98% of all freshwaters, 85% of which is captured to irrigate country’s crops.
The Nile delta irrigation network has four types of irrigation channels such as the continuously run primary canal, branch canals with rotational water, tertiary (mesqa) and quaternary canals (marwa) used by farmers and served land plots of three to five acres.
ICARDA's Soil, Water, and Agronomy (SWA) team of researchers aim to transform farming sector technically and behaviorally to adapt scarcity of water resources, SWA is initiating 'crop-per-drop' approach to advance irrigation methods, water systems, and technology such as implying digital and geospatial tools, big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Jointly with Egypt's Agriculture Research Center (ARC), ICARDA is exploring the perspectives of thermal imaging technology that can define water stress in wheat, faba bean, and barley crops to control irrigation scheduling and reduce water depletions.
ICARDA's SWA team financed by FAOs' Water Scarcity Initiative is launching NENA regional network for ET measurements to deliver accurate data assessments and translate this data for agriculture-related applications.
The full and original article is available on the ICARDA website: https://www.icarda.org/media/blog/collaboration-improves-water-productivity-egypt
