http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~jpap/hvidt.htm
This is the url, but I can't get it into an instant click link using the Forum tools.
However, if you google: Water resource planning in Egypt, the whole text will come up on the front page of the results that Google returns on those keywords.
If you do read the original article, I hope it is illuminative. However, I think that there are probably hundreds of articles about water supply in Egypt, and many other countries in northern Africa and the Middle East, that will all bring up the same picture.
I wish to note, regards Howard's point that desalination plants are already functional in Saudi Arabia, that they supply water mainly for Jedha and Medhina, but not for domestic use, nor irrigation. Such water, even after treatment, contains too much salt. Almost all Saudi Arabia's water supplies stem from wells, and these are drying out at an appalling rate. Probably faster than oil.
With an ever increasing population, all the sooner that water will be gone.
So the idea of research into how to produce better desalination plants, is by no means wrong, and by way of this and the other thread on Saudi Arabia, may-be the idea of a research academy in Dover in the field of irrigation and ground fertilisation could hit fertile soil, as the Forum is read by many people.
It could also bring work, if the researchers from Britain's universities came up with something more modern and effective in this field, and factories started producing new equipment so urgently needed in many countries. Then we could finally have the 'one', the producer that employes thousands of people (in Kent) and many more elsewhere in Britain.
It would also bring some of the money back that flows out on oil purchases.