AMWAJ
Egypt
Crop | Landscape Park
Region of trial | AMWAJ Holiday Destination
Date of trial | August - November
Co-operators | Elite WorldTrading (EWT), Sabbour Consulting and Hill International
50%
Saving on water
About the Trial
The aim of the trial was to implement the use of Engage’s world leading water saving technology, Integrate, via irrigated water to landscape within two areas, one established parkland and the other a newly turfed area.
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Both areas are within the newly developed AMWAJ Holiday destination set on Egypt’s North Coast.
The use of Aqualatus in this trial was to dramatically reduce the water requirement to grow healthy, vibrant plants.
2 August at 100% irrigation application
17 November at 50% irrigation application
2 August at 100% irrigation application
Zone 2
Newly turfed area
Trial Conclusion
Both trials areas were successful in proving Integrate could successfully be applied via irrigation to reduce the level of water required to grow plants. The level of 50% reduction was reached in 14 weeks however with moisture levels higher in the established area it is clear that 50% could have been reached earlier.
The virgin turfed area did take longer to reach optimal moisture content, this was due to the fact the area had never been irrigated prior to planting. Integrate in this instance would take longer to work as moisture levels needed to build underneath the root zone from a much lower level than the established area. This will be important when looking at commercial application for the region and could influence application rate going forward to accelerate efficacy.
For the AMWAJ Holiday destination, implementation of Integrate across the whole area would reduce water usage by 2,000,000 litres per day. Based on this, a saving in water of 730,000,000 litres per annum is proven along with saving 50% on nutrients and the energy to extract sea water, desalinate it and pump it to the irrigation system. It would also allow for a much larger area to be watered with the recycled water produced on site which would provide essential organic matter and extra nutrients to soils under the planted areas.
Business Case
The seawater is essentially free for Amwaj apart for the cost of an extraction licence. The main cost is the energy use and cost of desalination through the reverse osmosis system.
The cost of desalination alone is £0.76 per cubic meter of water per day so current cost for Amwaj per annum for this is £554,800 so saving 50% of this would be a saving of £277,400.
Cost of Integrate for the per annum for the whole of AMWAJ would be approximately £36,000 so the overall saving based solely on desalination cost would be £241,400 plus the saving in plant nutrition and the energy cost.