Adverse Impacts of Water Pollution from Agriculture (Crops, Livestock, and Aquaculture) on Human Health, Environment, and Economic Activities

At the time being, water is a restricted indispensable resource for sustainable development worldwide. In Egypt, water resources are fairly inadequate and the challenges for achieving the highest possible water use efficiency are not that easy. Now, it is imperative to save and conserve water while providing the necessary quantities to satisfy both social and economic needs sustainably. In association with the witnessed increases in population and rise in economic and social activities, the anxiety on the water is getting higher. Decision-makers in Egypt adopted several strategies to secure water allocation and distribution including the reuse of low-quality water particularly agricultural drainage water which is already used in farming on a large scale. Most of the agricultural drainage water in Egypt is apt to many types of pollutants coming from varied sources. Those pollutants are contentiously disposed of in agricultural drains and could be destroying the soil ecosystem when used in farming. The main adverse impacts of such pollutants are lowering the quality of water as a source for irrigation crops, as well as the suitability of harvests for consumption. In Egypt, climate change is expected to have some adverse impacts on the agro-environmental ecosystem. This, however, when linked to the low quality of irrigation water, would need urgent and fast actions. Therefore, the aim of this review is to throw light on the potential negative impacts on human health, environment and economic activities due to water pollution from agriculture (crops, livestock, and aquaculture) in Egypt.