The problems with the western desert canal include the one that exists for any open canal in arid or altiplano environments — water loss is enormous. Lake Nasser has been in decline for years, and water from it is used to feed the western canal; in addition, more water than that has to go through the dynamos to pump the water for the western canal. It’s a lose-lose situation.
A feddan is slightly more than an acre.
The revival of Al Salam Canal, supposed to develop Sinai
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/revival-al-salam-canal-supposed-develop-sinai-0
[snip] West of the Suez Canal, 200,000 feddans were cultivated and 100,000 feddans were distributed to farmers in the late 1970s... costly and disappointing results, putting it in a lineage of failed mega-projects such as Toshka... the project was initially meant to reclaim and cultivate over 600,000 feddans — 220,000 feddans to the west of the Suez Canal and 400,000 to the east. Only 125,000 feddans were reclaimed in total. [/snip]
Thank you.
Would an irrigation pipeline, rather than a canal, have avoided some or all of those problems? Or are there technical reasons why that wouldn’t have worked either?