Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Egypt is an arid country that depends on the share of the waters from Nile Basin. It faces ongoing challenges in meeting growing demand on water for food security, municipalities, hydropower generation, and environmental needs. Yet, food security and farming livelihoods under increased water scarcity are often treated as separate issues. In addition, little quantitative research has explored the combined impact of different water and land allocation policies on national food security and on farming livelihoods. In this work, a novel hydroeconomic integration and welfare analysis has been used to explore the impact of different land and water optimization alternatives on food security and rural livelihoods. This framework consists of hydrology, agronomy, economic, and institutional information. The impact of three water and land allocation scenarios on national food security and farming income are explored. Findings indicate the possibility of improving total economic livelihoods by 11% if both water and land resource were to be reallocated more efficiently. However, there is a tradeoff relationship between food security and farming livelihoods, where improving food security will be at the expense of food producers and vice versa.