Le Delta du Nil, la fin du miracle Série-Collection : Rivages

Luc Riolon
2008 - 43 min - HDCam - Couleur - France

A heavy threat hangs over the Egyptians: they will be amongst the first to be subjected to the consequences of global warming: a large part of the overcrowded Delta will be flooded before 2100 by a more and more aggressive Mediterranean Sea.
Almost 40 million human beings live less than two metres above the sea level ! The Egyptians study the phenomenon: Dr. Mohamed Bahnassi, scientist at the University of Alexandria, brought to the fore the overhang of the sea: 100 metres per year for the last 14 years, at the Rosetta Point.
But global warming is not the only cause responsible for this announced catastrophe. Since 1963, the Aswan Dam withholds millions of tons of the famous fertilizing silt arriving from Ethiopia. This silt enabled the Delta to fight against the sea by rebuilding piece by piece what the waves tore apart.
Apart from that, the Delta is naturally sinking under its own weight through gravity, 10mm per year for the last 10 years of the 20th century !
The third of the farmers suffer from the salt in their grounds on which almost nothing grows and from the pollution of the Nile waters due to the fertilizers having become unavoidable because of the Aswan Dam, the factories discharges spilled into the Nile and the sewers of a great number of towns, all these place the Egyptians in front of a formidable challenge : will they find the solution to these vital problems ? Only a few pioneers have put forward to their country real opportunities of sustainable development, concrete and astonishing by their ingenuity.