Climate Change Adaptations for Food Security in Vulnerable Areas of the Egyptian Nile—For Tackling the Overlooked Nexus Hazards of Hydrological Extremes and Waste Pollutions

Otto Chen,Miguel Rico-Ramirez,Ahmed Abdelhalim,Dawei Han,Ying Liu

doi:10.3390/w13040412

Abstract

The Nile Delta has been suffering from complex environmental hazards caused by climate change and human-induced evolvements, which have led to adverse impacts on national food security. An unfavourable nexus between solid waste management issues and extreme hydrological events is examined mainly through extensive field investigation and literature research, which is an emerging issue affecting food safety and security whilst still being overlooked so far. The findings not only reveal the significance of the emerging issue but also support our proposed recommendations in the policy/legislation and technology sphere. This interdisciplinary research employs a holistic lens that covers diverse perspectives, including systemic problems, wastewater treatment, and environmental neuroscience, to explore the relationship between food, climate change, water management, and waste pollution, and to achieve novel discoveries for the practical adaptations of Egypt’s challenges.

Highlights

The Nile Delta is an important region in Egypt since the ancient time, whilst it is vulnerable in a significant part of the region in terms of economy and environment, facing complex environmental issues involving extreme weather events, soil deterioration, water shortage, pollution and sea-level rise, as well as socio-economic challenges, which are acute in the West Nile Delta
As this study considers that extreme hydrological events will increasingly have adverse interactions with solid waste that harms the food security of Egypt in the future, the study seeks to address this unfavourable nexus for Egypt when the nexus is still prone to be overlooked at the present
Has shown its merit in weather forecasting, as nowcasting has the advantage in short pacts of climate change and human‐induced evolvements, have become the main national term performance whereas numerical weather prediction (NWP) has the advantage in mid/long term performance

Summary

Introduction

The Nile Delta is an important region in Egypt since the ancient time, whilst it is vulnerable in a significant part of the region in terms of economy and environment, facing complex environmental issues involving extreme weather events, soil deterioration, water shortage, pollution and sea-level rise, as well as socio-economic challenges, which are acute in the West Nile Delta. The region suffered more weather extremes due to climate change; the severe rainfall events resulted in flooding disasters leading to heavy casualties and economic loss. The extreme hydrological events attracted attention towards climate change effect on food security in Egypt and highlighted some emerging adverse effects due to human-induced evolvements towards the environment, such as solid waste pollution. The vulnerability has been further passed to food production

Methods

Results

Conclusion