Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Egypt's Irrigation Improvement Program (IIP), initiated in 1980s to modernizes irrigation water delivery by replacing traditional mesqas (tertiary canals) with pressurized pipelines. IIP faces severe scalability challenges due to capital cost escalation far exceeding fiscal planning. While previous research has addressed technical performance and institutional arrangements, the absence of inflation-adjusted cost analysis integrated with hydraulic adjustments for optimized improved system remains as a critical gap. This study addresses this gap by developing and validating an integrated technical and financial framework using Egypt's formal Consumer Price Index (CPI). CPI projections applied to historical benchmark costs (2000–2016) to develop representative model mesqas covering (40,000 feddans) and validates hydraulic performance using Darcy-Weisbach and continuity equations. Results demonstrate that the traditional IIP design, when inflation-adjusted to 2025 values, costs 34,270 LE/feddan. The proposed optimized design, including reduced pump sizes (30/45 l/s vs. 60/90 l/s), velocity-based hydraulic criteria, and participatory earthworks strategy, achieves a 40% cost reduction to 20,560 LE/feddan, representing potential savings of 13,710 LE/feddan. These findings establish that the proposed optimizations represent financial prerequisites for program continuation. The adjustments viability depends on two enabling conditions, reliable continuous flow in secondary canals and institutionalized participatory earthworks agreements with Water User Associations.
Source: Water Science
Institution: National Water Research Center
Language: English
Subfield: Aquatic Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7172342898