EGYPT: Geologist claims discovering water in desert

Egyptian geologist Khaled Ouda has announced the discovery of a "sea of underground water" in the vast Western desert on the Egyptian-Libyan border. Apparently inspired by the popular uprising that ousted long-standing president Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, he named some of the claimed oases after Tahrir Square, the 'revolution' and 'martyrs'.

"This reservoir of fresh water is enough to reclaim and irrigate around 3.7 million acres," Ouda, a professor of geology at the state-owned Assiut University in southern Egypt, told a press conference in Cairo last week.

He added that his 'discovery' was the result of a field trip to the area earlier this year.

"The deposits of water there can help Egypt create a new delta in the surrounding area, where millions of acres can be reclaimed for farming and cultivating wheat, which Egypt badly needs," Ouda, 67, added.

Egypt, with a population of 80 million, is the world's top wheat importer. The majority of the country's people live in the Nile Delta, which makes up around 4% of Egypt's total area.

Ouda's alleged discovery immediately raised doubts.

"This find needs more research and exploratory tests before it is approved," Nahed al-Orabi, the director of the governmental Underground Water Institute, told the same press conference. "Research will help determine the potential water that can be pumped from this sea before talking about the area that can be cultivated there," she added.

Mohamed Gad, an Egyptian researcher, reinforced al-Orabi's doubts. "The figures announced by Dr Ouda are exaggerated and need new studies to be verified," he stated.

According to Ouda, the Western Desert has nine new oases depending on underground water lying nearby. During the press conference, he presented satellite images of the "underlying sea" in the 700,000 square kilometer Western Desert.

"For 50 years we taught incorrect information to our students, claiming that the Western Desert with its Great Sand Sea is only composed of immense sand dunes that devour anyone daring to come near," Ouda said at the conference held at Egypt's state-run Al Ahram Press House.

"This discovery exposes this fallacy, proving that the Great Sand Sea has huge quantities of underground water that can give rise to an agricultural community."

The Great Sand Sea is the world's third largest sand accumulation, where parallel dune ridges run for hundreds of kilometres, according to geologists.

Ouda urged the Egyptian government to make use of his 'discovery', which he said was made after "a hard journey" to the area from 28 June to 6 July this year in conjunction with the ministry of agriculture and the governmental Desert Research Institute.

"The Egyptian government should take seriously the prospect of having the Delta flooded due to climatic changes. This [flooding] will happen in the coming years and around 33% of the Delta will be submerged," he said.

"The only solution is to create new communities in the Western Desert."