Egypt’s rapid population growth from 25 million in 1953 to 90 million in 2015, therefore its growing demand for domestic water, which is estimated at 200 liters per capita per day, (about 5.5 billion m³ per year), has become a serious challenge for the country. Due to network losses, actual domestic water use is lower than the produced amount of water by 30% (pipe leakage, etc.). The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation of Egypt, estimates that a threshold of absolute water scarcity (500 m3/capita/year) will be reached by 2025.

Egypt’s reliance on the Nile as a water resource, combined with the forecast growth in water demand, highlights the importance of conserving and managing this scarce resource, both from an environmental and economic perspective.

The EU-funded “Water and Environment Support (WES) in the ENI Southern Neighbourhood region” project is developing an activity titled “Strengthen the water utilities capacities to manage/reduce Non-Revenue Water (NRW) and detect leakage in Egypt”.

As part of the work under this activity, the WES team of water experts have successfully prepared and organised a 3-day Training on 13-15/02/2023, at the headquarters of the Asyut Water and Wastewater Company (AWWC) in Egypt.

During the Training of Trainers, 15 experts of AWWC were introduced to issues such as NRW, Mapping and GIS, Hydraulic Modelling, Zone/DMA design, Water Losses and Water Balance, Developing an NRW Reduction Plan, Monitoring Performances of NRW Management.

By the end of this training, the trainees were able to:

a. Set up the water supply zones and the District Metered Areas within the AWWC network and ensuring its tightness; b. Calculate the water balance and c. Validate the NRW reduction procedures in AWWC proposed by the activity.