Ecological Risk Assessment of Lake

Mariut, Alexandria,Egypt

May 2009
 OBJECTIVES:
• Background & description of Lake Mariut.
• Main current ecosystem services.
• How to assess the risk :-
– Planning & scoping process:
– Problem formulation.
– Analysis.
– Risk characterization.
• Stressors & exposure pathways.
• Measurements endpoint to determine impacts to Lake Mariut.
• Damage assessment for Lake Mariut.
• Management of this risk.
• Egypt has been listed among the ten countries that are threatened
by the need of water by the year 2025 due to the rapidly increasing
population.

• Water shortages necessitates seeking new water supplies for

agriculture activities, which consume about 86.3% of water supply
in Egypt

• The application of waste water for irrigation purposes was one of

the available alternatives to be adopted.

• Lake Mariut not only represents a possible future reservoir of

treated waste waters, but could also become a much more
important source of fish than is today, a unique area of leisure, and
a priceless natural environment
Background
Lake Mariut (Mariout, Maryut, Mareotis) is a 90-150 cm deep
brackish water lake located in the north of Egypt southeast to
the Alexandria city, belonging to the Nile river Delta system,
and one of the most heavily populated urban areas in Egypt
and in the world.

Description of Lake Mariut

– Lake Mariut, as it appears today, is the smallest of four
shallow, brackish water lakes
– adjoining the Mediterranean Coast of Egypt. Great areas of
this Lake were reclaimed for agriculture.
– The lake is now divided artificially into four parts.
• Main Basin: 25 km2
• Fisheries Basin: 4.2 km2
• Northwest Basin: 12.5 km2
• Southwest Basin: 31.5 km2
 Main current ecosystem services

The main services currently provided by Lake Mariut are

1. Acting as dumping area of all kind of wastes before water is
pumped out to the sea,
2. Being a potential water source for irrigation and animal
drinking water,
3. A place to feed and raise cattle,
4. A place where to life, and
5. An area for fish farming.
 Planning: EPA begins the process of an Ecological risk
assessment with planning and research.

1. Problem formulation:
• In recent years Lake Mariut has suffered much from intensive pollution,
although at one time it was a highly productive lake.
• This pollution resulted from the successive increase in human population and
industry around the Lake.
• Different kinds of pollutants from various sources continuously entered into
the Lake and to a great extent it has deteriorated.
• The result is that the Lake has changed into a markedly eutrophic state. Such
severe pollution is mainly responsible for the great decrease in the total fish
catch from this lake.
• The Main Basin covers an area of about 25 km2, has been
suffering from high levels of pollution. Currently, the main
sources of pollution in this part of the Lake, are represented by:

• The West Treatment Plant Outfall, which discharges about 200,000

– 300,000 m3/day of settled sewage into the lake.

• El Qallaa Drain Outfall, which discharge about 400,000 m3/day of

agricultural waste water and sewage into the lake after primary
treatment. In general, El Qallaa Drain is considered the major
source of pollution in the lake.

• Gheit El Enab Outfall was discharging about 25,000 – 35,000

m3/day of raw sewage and some industrial waste water into the
lake. Such industrial waste water has high BOD, COD, oil and
suspended solids.
Lake Mariut suffers from almost all possible environmental problems:

Human activities:
Land filling for building houses, infrastructures,
Agriculture has been reducing the area of the Lake from 700 km2 to the
present 250 km2.

Urban expansion:
From the densely populated Alexandria and the uncontrolled
deposition of solid waste

Pollutants load:
Huge amounts of inorganic and organic toxic substances, from different
forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, heavy metals, pesticides, and
pathogens.
1- 122.6 tons/day for sanitary drainage,
2- 180 tons/day from industries,
3- Up to 6 million m3/day of agricultural waste waters.
 2.Analysis
The goal of the analysis is to provide the ingredients necessary for
determining or predicting ecological responses to stressors under exposure
condition of interest.
 2.Analysis
Measurements endpoint to determine impacts to Lake Mariut:
• Depth.
• Water physical analysis (oxygen
content, conductivity, temperature and
pH)
• Water chemical analysis (nutrients and
heavy metals: : iron (Fe), zinc (Zn),
manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), nickel
(Ni), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and
chromium (Cr)).
• Sediment sampling.
• Vegetation visual measures (density,
abundance and cover).
• Vegetation sampling (quantitative).
• Stressors: • Exposure pathways:
• Untreated domestic • Urban expansion .
sewage.
• uncontrolled deposition
• Industrial wastes. of solid waste.
• Pesticides.
• drainage waters.
• Fertilizers.
• Treatment Plant Outfall.
• Heavy enrichment of
• El Qallaa Drain Outfall.
nutrients, predominantly
• Gheit El Enab Outfall.
phosphates.
• Agriculture, urban,
tourism and industrial
development, road
construction
• Land filling of the Lake.
Areas that have water quality suitable for
aquaculture
Areas that have water quality suitable for
irrigation
 Assessment
• Because of its shallowness
• Turbidity was not measured regularly but there are several observations that there is
high turbidity. This high turbidity is attributed both to algal development in the water
column and to the re-suspension of the unstable sediments of the bottom of the lake.
• The average oxygen saturation in the lake was around 50%. According to Safty (1994),
the lowest oxygen concentration and highest H2S were found in the feeding water of
Lake Mariut, confirming the acute effect of pollution coming from the waste water
effluents.
• High levels of phosphates are not directly a problem, The problems come from the
indirect effects the high availability of nutrients has in natural ecosystems: algal
productivity blooms, massive flux of organic matter to the sediments, anoxia build up,
death of benthic vegetation, general degradation of the ecosystem including a drastic
decrease in production and biodiversity.
 Assessment
• Heavy metal may accumulate unnoticed in the aquatic environment to toxic levels. They
are partitioned among the various aquatic compartments and may occur in dissolved,
particulate and complex forms.
• Some heavy metals, such as Zn, Cu, Mn, and Fe, are essential for aquatic organisms, but
show toxic effects when organisms are exposed to higher abnormal concentrations.
Others (Pb, Hg, and Cd) are not essential for metabolic activities and exhibit toxic
properties.
• The prevailing vegetation, where only 2 species are actually dominant Phragmites and
Eicchornia, is clearly indicative of a highly disturbed environment with a very poor
ecological condition.
• The other significantly abundant species is Typha domingensis.
• This luxurious growth of these pollution-resistant species, is the ultimate consequence of
the drastic reduction in fish catches in the lake and, therefore of the decline of this
economically key activity in the lake.
3.Risk characterization
The main threats identified for lake are::
1. Physical alteration of the basins and change the pattern of circulation;
2. Over uses of resources and mining (sand extraction) activities;
3. Pollution and impairment of the environmental quality;
4. Land filling of the Lake;
5. Industrial, agricultural, and sanitary untreated wastewater inputs in the
lake;
6. Urban expansion;
7. Solid Wastes.
In general, more than 90% of the fishermen declare that it has come to a
time when the size of the catch is no longer compensating the fishing
efforts. The two main reasons for this are the heavy pollution of the lake,
and the reduction of the effective fish swimming area due to vegetation
growth.

Pollutants load has been estimated in 122.6 tons/day for sanitary

drainage, 180 tons/day from industries, and up to 6 million m3/day of
agricultural waste waters. All these inputs introduce in the Lake huge
amounts of inorganic and organic toxic substances, from different forms
of nitrogen, phosphorus, heavy metals, pesticides,
and pathogens.

Urban expansion from the densely populated Alexandria and the

uncontrolled deposition of solid waste, complete a very complicated and
distressing environmental panorama for Lake Mariut making of it the
most polluted one of Egypt.
 Management of this risk
1. Improve the quality of the sewage and industrial wastes dumping directly or indirectly
via agricultural drains.
2. Industries affecting Lake Mariut should be encouraged to adopt low and non-waste
technologies at all stages of production.
3. Limiting use of fertilizers in agriculture for reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus inputs
into Lake Mariut.
4. Control policies and measures should be enforced, especially before new industries are
established around the Lake to prevent the introduction of processes which may have
detrimental effects on its ecological condition.
5. Providing the public with special training programs on environmental and pollution
problems with illustrative examples for protection and management.
6. Finally, the following five priority actions are proposed:
– Domestic Waste Water Management.
– Industrial and agricultural Waste Water Management.
– Land-use Planning.
– Preparation of a Long-Term Integrated Lake Management Plan.
 Reference
Lake Mariut: An Ecological Assessment , May 2009

Prepared by:
• Miguel Ángel Mateo
• Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Blanes
• Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
• Acceso Cala S. Francesc 14. 17300 Blanes, Spain

Colaborators:
• Laura Serrano and Oscar Serrano (CEAB-CSIC)
• WADI project (Water Demand Integration; INCO-CT-2005-015226)
• CEDARE (Centre for the Developement of the Arabic Region).