Water Pollution in Cairo

Water Pollution in Cairo

The scale of pollution in Cairo is mammoth with the ever, continuing

amounts of waste being released into the city. With the ever, growing

population of Cairo levels of pollution are sure to increase. Recently

the large EU financial institution announced on April 10 that it had

awarded Egypt a grant of $79,000 to investigate the cause of the

choking air pollution in the city, which has been blamed on Nile

Delta. Due the massive amounts of pollution Cairo's daily air quality

remains a constant health concern. The World Health Organization has

reported that the air pollution in downtown Cairo is 10 to 100 times

above the level considered safe

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Water Pollution:

Cairo with 13 million people is the largest city in the Middle East

region. As typical of giant cities, it has continuous rapid population

growth and massive expansion. Since the city is an open environmental

system, Cairo's surrounding regions are burdened with heavy wastewater

discharges and increasing water demand. Also the city's water

resources are affected by discharges from other regions.

Causes:

* Cairo is located immediately upstream of the delta about 250 km

from the Mediterranean. The River Nile meet all of Cairo's

freshwater demand; human daily use (consumption and domestic

uses), agriculture, and industry.

* Just as the Nile is the primary source of fresh water, it is also

the primary receiver of wastewater and drainage generated by

different activities.

* The Nile receives large flows of mostly untreated domestic,

agricultural, and industrial wastewater from Southern Cairo. Here...

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...undations are being applied to the ground for

buildings.

Solutions:

* Most of this type of pollution is actually left unattended since

there are not sources, which indicate that any type of activity

takes place. Most of the run down homes are probably inhabited by

immigrants in to Cairo until there achieve a better status in the

city.

* Waste is still left in plastic bags and thrown into rivers and the

streets since there has been no introduction of any re-cycling

schemes because they are very costly and in a sense very

uneconomically advantageous.

* Nothing much can really be done to help sort out problems with

spillages because most of them are accidental or people who are

responsible do not report or clean them up because there is

possibly a fine.