Land reclamation west of the Nile Delta has been one of
the multipronged efforts Egypt has undertaken to conquer and
develop its deserts. Another is to increase cultivation and settle-
ment in what Egyptians call the New Valley (Wadi Gadeed ),
the oases depressions of Kharga and Dakhla. They are judged
to be underpopulated relative to the Nile Valley and delta, and
so efforts are under way to draw settlers from the overcrowded
Nile region by developing petroleum and mineral industries
and increasing the cultivable area of these oases—mainly by
drilling new wells, but also recently by bringing freshwater
from Lake Nasser by canal in the so-called Tushka Project.
Another canal carries Nile water from the eastern delta into the
northern Sinai Peninsula, where there are plans to resettle as
many as a million inhabitants from the Nile region.