Agricultural Civilization Dying Where it Began

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The Delta was already in danger, threatened by the side effects of southern Egypt's Aswan Dam. Though the dam, completed in 1970, generates much-needed electricity and controls Nile River flooding, it also keeps nutrient sediment from replenishing the eroding Delta.

Add climate change to the mix, and the Delta faces new uncertainties that could have a potentially more devastating effect on Egypt.

Scientists generally predict that the Mediterranean, and the world's other seas, will rise between one foot and 3.3 feet by the end of the century, flooding coastal areas along the Delta.

Already, the Mediterranean has been creeping upward about .08 inches annually for the last decade, flooding parts of Egypt's shoreline, el-Raey said.

By 2100, the rising waters could wipe out the sandy beaches that attract thousands of tourists. Also at risk would be the buried treasures archaeologists are still uncovering in ancient Alexandria, once the second most important city in the Roman Empire.

But those losses would pale to the impact of the worst-case scenario that some scientists are predicting - global warming unexpectedly and rapidly breaking up the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.

If this happens, seas could rise by about 16 feet, causing mass devastation to the region, according to a World Bank study released this year.

Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Penn State University, said the sheets are collapsing at slow rate, but much faster than scientists thought a decade ago. A complete collapse could take "at least centuries," said Alley, an expert on ice melt.

But even minimal sea rise in the next century would have serious consequences for Egypt, experts warn.

A rise of 3.3 feet would flood a quarter of the Delta, forcing about 10.5 percent of Egypt's population from their homes, according to the World Bank. The impact would be all the more staggering if Egypt's population, as expected, doubles to about 160 million by the middle of the century. The Delta is already densely packed with about 4,000 people per square mile.

Also hit would be Egypt's food supply. Nearly half of Egypt's crops, including wheat, bananas and rice, are grown in the Delta.

Areas not under water would also be affected, with salt water from the Mediterranean contaminating the fresh ground water from the Nile River used for irrigation.
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