New Valley project

The New Valley project is part of a larger project, the South Valley Development Project originally initiated by Egypt’s president in 1997, Hosni Mubarak. The South Valley Development Project developed in Toshka, East Oweinat and the New Governorate Oases. It is designed to ease population in the Nile Valley and to increase Egypt’s economy and change approx. 740.000 acres of desert in to habitable land allowing 6 million people to live there. It is also expected to create 10.000+ job opportunities.
This project was funded through a grant from the UAE government under the management of ADFD (Abu Dhabi Fund of Development). This strategic project contributes to creating a new delta in the South, to be parallel to the Nile delta and adds 540.000 acres to the agricultural land in Egypt.

The New Valley Project consists of building a number of canals, to be able to irrigate parts of the desert in Egypt for the purpose of agriculture (226.800 hectares). The project was started in 1997. Its main canal should cover a distance of 310 kilometres (190 mi). In 2012, it was still 60 kilometres (37 mi) away from the oasis it was supposed to reach. Other problems of the project include the fact that the soil is very salty in the desert, and that there are underground aquifers, which are a problem for the canals. When the land is irrigated, the salt would mix with the aquifers and would reduce access to drinking water. The clay minerals found in the soil are posing technical problems to the big wheeled structures moving around autonomously to irrigate the land. Often their wheels get stuck in a little bowl created by wet clay that dried, and the irrigation machines come to a standstill. The only objective met up to April 2012 is the diversion of water from Lake Nasser into what little of the Sheikh Zayed Canal has been built.

Valley Development Project

The main canal with 70 km length has been designed to convey water to several branches as follows: - The first branch canal is 42 km in length serving an area of 120000 feddans (50400 hectars). The second branch canal is 35 km in length serving an area of 120000 feddans. The third branch canal is 20 km in length serving an area of 100000 feddans. The fourth branch canal is 60 km in length serving an area of 200000 feddans. The cross section of the main canal was designed to be lined to prevent any water leakage with a bed width of 30 meters and water depth of 6 meters, in addition to one meter free board, with an upper width of 54 meters with platforms on the two sides 8 meters wide, and 20 meter-wide.

Applying Manning’s equation assuming that the flow is uniform and considering the following bases of design: - Water discharge Q = 300 m3/sec.
At the center of the project is the Mubarak Pumping Station which cost $436 million to build and which was completed in March 2005. It is located in the center of the lake and is completely surrounded by water. It has 24 vertical pumps which are installed in two parallel lines along both sides of the station. The pumps are load-controlled and have adjustable speed settings. At any one time, only 18 of the pumps are running. Three are used for maintenance needs, and three are kept in reserve. The station with an open 50m-deep intake channel, the deepest inland channel of its kind, will make the complex able to pump 1.2 million cubic meters of water per hour.