Ecohydrology for Integrated Water Resources Management in the Nile Basin

Within the framework of an UNESCO-FUST project “FRIEND-NILE II”, the implementation of ecohydrology, as a promising discipline that can help solving the problems with water quality management is the focus objective for the participating Nile countries. In this paper, the importance of ecohydrology as a tool for integrated water resources management with focus on the Nile Delta of Egypt was discussed. Based on survey of past and ongoing research activities, it could be concluded that the effort to gain formal recognition of natural processes as explicit tools in water management will require a rather dramatic change in perspective and may be best introduced to the Nile countries through the international agreements. The results showed the importance of natural ecosystems for regulating nutrients and water cycles. At the level of implementation, natural ecohydrological processes (buffering capacity of wetlands), should be viewed as a fundamental component of more multifaceted solutions, including additional systems (constructed wetlands, buffer zones). Finally, it is strongly believed that by improving our ecohydrological understanding of natural water purification processes (data collection), new issues (ecohydrological modeling, GIS) can be used for the sustainable use of water in the Nile Basin.