Building Resilient Communities and Sustainable Agriculture Through Integrated Water Resources Management in South Sinai

The South Sinai region faces a combination of severe agro-environmental, climatic, hydrological, and socio-economic challenges that have made sustainable water and agricultural management critical. Water scarcity is acute due to limited freshwater resources, reliance on irregular and insufficient rainfall, and increasing competition for water among agricultural, domestic, and environmental needs. Climatic stresses such as rising temperatures and flash floods complicate water availability and soil quality, while traditional irrigation methods and limited infrastructure reduce water use efficiency. Moreover, local communities often endure economic vulnerabilities tied to these resource constraints, necessitating integrated, adaptive approaches to water resource management that ensure both agricultural productivity and community resilience.

The project aimed to implement an integrated Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus solution focused primarily on sustainable water resource management, resilient agricultural practices, and ecosystem protection in South Sinai. It targeted all four nexus dimensions by promoting water use efficiency, renewable energy for irrigation, food security through adaptive farming methods, and safeguarding fragile desert ecosystems. Stakeholder consultations were conducted to align objectives with community needs and institutional priorities. The project timeline included short-term goals of improving water harvesting and crop yields within 1-2 years, and long-term goals of ecosystem restoration and socio-economic resilience over 5 years or more. This holistic approach was designed to create sustainable, scalable solutions that balance resource use and ecosystem health.

The project implemented at the research experimental station in El-Tur City and through applied research activities in South Sinai comprised a combination of scientific research, field demonstrations, and community-oriented actions aimed at strengthening water, energy, and food security.

Installed WEFE (Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem) technical systems included wind and electrically powered water pumping units, flood and rainwater harvesting structures designed to enhance groundwater recharge, and modern irrigation technologies such as sprinkler and drip systems. These installations tailored in capacity to local hydrological and agricultural conditions supported smallholder farming and improved community access to reliable water supplies.

In parallel, several “soft” interventions were undertaken to build local capacity and promote sustainable resource management. These included stakeholder engagement workshops, farmer training programs on efficient irrigation and renewable energy use, and awareness campaigns encouraging water-saving practices and environmentally sensitive cultivation methods.

Project implementation followed a phased and adaptive sequence. Activities initially focused on establishing water harvesting and pumping infrastructure, subsequently expanded to the cultivation of economic crops with varying tolerance to salinity and aridity, and later incorporated biodiversity components to enhance ecosystem resilience. Throughout the project, a participatory approach involved local farmers, community representatives, government authorities, and technical experts, ensuring the interventions addressed both technical constraints and socio-economic challenges effectively.

The demonstrator has significantly enhanced the Water–Energy–Food–Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus in South Sinai by combining low-cost water harvesting structures, efficient irrigation and fertilization practices, and community-based interventions. These actions have strengthened local water security, improved agricultural productivity and water use efficiency, contributed to renewable energy use, and supported Bedouin livelihoods and ecosystem resilience.​

• Across the water dimension, 243 mountain lakes with an overall storage on the order of 500,000 m³ per year were implemented in mountainous catchments around Saint Catherine, in addition to several smaller lakes and harvesting structures in El-Tur and Wadi Feiran, enabling seasonal rain and flash-flood water capture, groundwater recharge, and mitigation of flood risks. These lakes, together with groundwater recharge zones and shallow wells, reduced dependence on costly desalination, stabilized shallow aquifers, and supported settlement and pastoral activities for Bedouin communities in multiple valleys.​
• On the energy side, wind-powered and conventional water pumps were installed and operated to lift harvested and groundwater for irrigation and domestic uses, demonstrating the technical and economic feasibility of integrating renewable energy into local water supply. Although the pumps have relatively small unit capacities, their deployment has lowered fuel needs and recurrent energy costs compared to exclusive reliance on diesel-based pumping in remote areas.​
• In the food dimension, water-efficient agriculture systems were piloted, including plastic greenhouses (approximately 30 m × 9 m each) planted with vegetables such as green pepper, eggplant, cucumber, and tomato, and open-field cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants such as mint and rosemary. In parallel, field experiments on wheat in the El-Tur pilot area (about 2,400 m² experimental area with 24 plots) showed that combining drip irrigation with nano- and bio-fertilizers increased wheat grain yield by more than 100% and biological yield by over 70% compared with conventional NPK, while improving water productivity to around 2.1–2.6 kg/m³ for biomass and up to approximately 0.9 kg/m³ for grain.​
• From an ecosystem perspective, the mountain lakes and recharge structures have reduced the intensity of flash-flood impacts and created more stable moisture conditions that support vegetation, medicinal plants, and associated biodiversity in highland and wadi environments. By favoring low-cost, small-scale works and integrating surface and groundwater, the demonstrator contributes to climate-change adaptation, reduced environmental pressure from desalination, and more sustainable land and water use in fragile mountain ecosystems.​
• “Soft” interventions have been central to these achievements, including multiple stakeholder and community meetings (with proposals for around 100 potential harvesting locations), participatory selection of lake sites, and continuous engagement with Bedouin communities, local stakeholders, and government agencies. Capacity-building activities encompassed farmer training on irrigation scheduling, nano- and bio-fertilizer use, greenhouse management, and water-saving practices, along with awareness raising on the WEFE nexus and sustainable agriculture; these activities involved dozens of local farmers and community members and have begun to shift practices toward more efficient and climate-resilient production systems.​

Overall, the project objectives have been largely achieved in terms of: 

(i) Demonstrating technically sound and socially accepted low-cost water harvesting and groundwater recharge systems, 

(ii) Improving crop productivity and water-use efficiency under water scarcity through optimized irrigation and fertilization, and 

(iii) enhancing socio-economic conditions via new production opportunities and improved water access. Remaining challenges relate mainly to scaling up solar energy systems, extending greenhouse and crop diversification, and securing long-term operation and maintenance funding, which explains why some planned expansions (e.g., additional wells, greenhouses) are at proposal or early implementation stage rather than fully realized.​

(i) Prepare a draft national strategy and guidelines for low-cost mountain-lake water harvesting in similar topographic areas.

(ii) Scientific contributions, such as peer-reviewed publications on wheat productivity, nano-/bio-fertilizers, and water productivity in Sinai; and 

(iii) The collaboration between the Agriculture Research Center and the National Water Research Center institutes, such as the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) and the Water Management Research Institute (WMRI), has been significantly strengthened, including coordination with various ministry of Water resources and Irrigation (MWRI) sectors and local authorities. This enhanced institutional partnership supports integrated research, policy development, and implementation efforts across agriculture and water management domains. 

These outputs support policy dialogues on non-conventional water resources, sustainable irrigation, and climate-resilient agriculture in Egypt and provide replicable models for other arid and semi-arid regions.

This demonstrates high potential for replication and scaling in arid, tourism-dependent regions with marginalized rural communities, because it combines proven IWRM practices, small-scale WEFE innovations, and strong community participation in South Sinai’s context. The most transferable lessons relate to integrated planning for water resources, socially inclusive governance, climate-resilient agriculture, and alignment with national WEFE/NWFE policies.

Lessons on sustainability

• Integrating groundwater, rainwater harvesting, flood protection structures, and renewable energy (solar/wind) systems creates a diversified water portfolio that reduces climate and supply risks for Bedouin and farming communities.
• Coupling water interventions with sustainable agriculture (efficient irrigation, drought-tolerant crops, soil and rangeland restoration) strengthens livelihoods and encourages local settlement, which reinforces long‑term management of infrastructure and ecosystems.
• Continuous capacity building for communities, local authorities, and cooperatives is essential for maintaining systems, operating new technologies, and embedding WEFE principles in day‑to‑day decisions rather than one‑off projects.

Lessons on replicability

• The core WEFE package is modular: rainwater harvesting and flood control, groundwater recharge, renewable energy applied (solar/wind) powered pumping, and climate-smart agriculture can be adapted to other wadis, oases, and coastal zones with similar hydro‑climatic conditions. 
• Successful replication depends on early co-design with indigenous and local users, integrating their traditional knowledge, mobility patterns, and land‑use practices into site selection, storage design, and cropping choices. 
• Data-light but robust assessment tools (hydrological analysis, socio‑economic vulnerability profiles, and basic ecosystem diagnostics) make it easier for other countries with limited data to identify suitable sites and design realistic interventions.

Lessons on scalability

• Scaling from pilot to governorate or national level requires embedding the demonstrator into existing strategies such as NWFE, climate adaptation plans, and rural development and desalination programs, so that budget lines and institutional mandates are clear. 
• Interoperable monitoring systems for water use, energy consumption, agricultural productivity, and ecosystem status help authorities compare sites, prioritize investments, and justify upscaling WEFE interventions in national planning and financing frameworks.
• Blending public finance, climate funds, and impact‑oriented private investment is critical to scale low‑cost, decentralized technologies (e.g., solar or wind pumping, simplified hydroponics, on‑farm water reuse) beyond single communities. 

Policy-relevant lessons for other countries

• Cross-sector governance platforms at sub‑national level (water, agriculture, energy, environment, and social affairs) can jointly manage demonstrators, which builds trust and offers a concrete entry point for institutionalizing the WEFE Nexus. 
• Policy frameworks should prioritize flexible, community‑led IWRM in fragile or remote areas, allowing local agreements on water sharing, land tenure, and benefit-sharing from tourism or ecosystem services to emerge around WEFE interventions. 

National guidelines and toolkits documenting design standards, O&M arrangements, gender and youth inclusion practices, and monitoring indicators from South Sinai can support rapid replication of similar demonstrators across the Mediterranean and other arid regions.