SOS-WAHA

Securing the Sustainability
of Oasis Societies Associated
with Water and Land Use
in the Western Desert

Discover the Art of Sustainable and Beautiful Kharga Oasis

Project Outline

This study contributes to the development of a comprehensive framework for sustainable water and land use to prevent salt accumulation, through an international joint research project focused on an oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert. There are three main reasons for conducting this international collaborative research:

1- Integrated Approach to Salt Avoidance: The project aims to develop an integrated approach to tackling the challenge of avoiding farmland salinization by combining irrigation technologies at the individual farm level with drainage management technologies at the regional scale, rather than addressing them separately.

2- Oasis as a Methodological Focus for Interdisciplinary Research: The study emphasizes the oasis as a focal point for interdisciplinary research that bridges the humanities and sciences. Since the issue of farmland salinization is structurally complex and inherently interdisciplinary,having diverse researchers share the “oasis” as a conceptual and physical framework enables exploration of solutions from a broad perspective—one that includes technological interventions as well as diverse socio-environmental strategies.

3- Participatory, Practice-Based Research Model: Unlike conventional research on salt accumulation, which has mainly focused on centralized, top-down preventive measures from civil and agricultural engineering perspectives, this project adopts a participatory and practice-oriented research model. The project organizes community-based activities for salinization prevention, led by motivated citizens such as farmers and youth. These community members will directly measure data on salinity and water quality, and use this data to co-develop a bidirectional digital information platform among residents, local authorities, and researchers for monitoring salt accumulation and drainage.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, are a set of 17 interconnected goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. They are a global call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.