Egypt builds a huge treatment plant to solve the Giza water crisis

The Egyptian government has announced the construction of a large water station known as "Dahab Island" in the hopes of alleviating the drinking water crisis in Giza Governorate. After pilot tests, Major General Ahmed Rashid, Governor of Giza, announced that Dahab Island will be operational in its second phase, with a production capacity of 160,000 metres per day.

Rasheed stated that operating the plant in its two phases will greatly ease water pressure and availability concerns impacting some districts in Giza. The first phase was finished and started in 2019. The expansions to the Dahab Island plant will cost EGP 640 million in total.

The water is purified at the Dahab Island treatment plant utilising sophisticated DynaSand technology, which filters water constantly via sand. In Egypt, fast sand filtration is used in the majority of water treatment plants.

Egypt has 146 sewage treatment plants with a total daily capacity of five million cubic metres, with a total cost of 29.5 billion pounds and a cost of 10,000 pounds to treat a cubic metre of water, according to the official.

Two more stations are being developed by the Ministry. Bahr al-Baqar is one of them, with a daily capacity equal to the sum of its 146 predecessors. In January 2020, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala al-Saeed announced the allocation of 236 million pounds to provide electric power to the sewage treatment plant in Bahr al-Baqar.