The Cairo Water Week ran from 29 October to 3 November 2023 bringing together more than 90 International and Regional Organizations, 1045 Keynote speakers and over 21,800 participants. The Egyptian Chinese University (ECU) as member of the Mara-Mediterra partnership, seized this opportunity to organize a Special Session during the Cairo Water Week on 31 October, where the most recent achievements of the PRIMA funded Mara-Mediterra project were presented, with focus on the novel Aquaponic Wetlands facility established by ECU. The over 50 participants in the Special Session were welcomed by Dr. Sonata Ebrahim, Representative of the ECU Board of Trustees. Prof. Rasha Elkholy and Prof. Alaa El-Din Abdin introduced ECU’s role at different levels of society in general and its assigned research tasks in the Mara-Mediterra project in particular. Dr. Mohamed Embaby and Eng. Mohab Negm spoke about the successful implementation of the Aquaponic Wetlands system and about the activities being performed by the Living Lab in the Kafr el-Sheikh governorate in the Nile Delta. The project coordinator, Dr. Vasileios Takavakoglou (SWRI), Eng. Dirk De Ketelaere and Anna Spiteri (IRMCo), provided, respectively, a general overview of the project, its technical interventions and its stakeholder engagement activities.
The Egyptian Chinese University (ECU) presented its PRIMA funded Aquaponic Wetlands facility. The novel system simulates the provisioning and regulatory services of wetland ecosystems for growing plants on floating rafts and for nature-based water quality improvement in a closed loop system. More details about its functioning, including two video clips, can be accessed on the project website, via this link.
Significantly, the unconventional approach of soilless agriculture presents a novel means to address both the challenge of water as well as that of food security. A crowning moment was the visit by the Mara-Mediterra project coordinator and team members, who had joined the Cairo Water Week, to the Aquaponic Wetlands facility installed at ECU’s campus in Cairo. The design, construction and installation of an automated monitoring and control system at the facility had been achieved more than 6 months ahead of the originally foreseen schedule!
The Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram Weekly, brought extensive coverage of the Cairo Water Week in its issue no. 1662, 2-8 November 2023. The coverage pays tribute for the event to have placed the water issue at the forefront of shaping global climate action. It also informs that Dr. Mahmoud Abu Zeid, president of the Arab Water Council, spoke to Al-Ahram about the recently signed cooperation agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources that aimed to confront the effects of climate change on the water sector in the Arab regions, by enhancing, among other, the reliance on modern technology to confront water challenges with unconventional methods. Clearly, the aquaponic wetlands facility fully attests itself as an example of a modern technology in line with the aspirations expressed by Dr. Mahmoud Abu Zeid, President of the Arab Water Council.
This post was penned by Dirk De Ketelaere for Mara-Mediterra’s third e-Newsletter which was issued in January 2024 and can be accessed in Arabic, English, French, Greek and Turkish.
