By Barnaby Phillips in Alexandria

Deep inside the waterways of the Nile Delta, it is hard to believe that this region is in an environmental crisis. It is an idyllic setting as the canoes of fishermen drift through the swamps; kingfishers and egrets fly overhead, and reeds glisten in the early morning sunshine.

But the fishermen are not happy. They say their catches are down, and that the water is more and more polluted from nearby factories.

There is certainly enormous pressure on the Delta's resources; most of Egypt's 80 million people are crammed into this fertile, green landscape, where the Nile ends its epic journey half the length of Africa, and fans out into a series of tributaries and lakes, before flowing into the Mediterranean.

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We leave the fishermen, and drive north, closer to the Mediterranean coastline. Our engaging guide is Mamdouh Hamza, a prominent Egyptian engineer and head of a company that specialises in underwater construction.

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As the sea on Egypt's coastline rises, (Hamza says by 20cm during the last century, a statistic that leading Egyptian government scientists concur with) salt-water infiltrates the Delta's soil from below, and destroys the farming land.

The consequences of this are very serious for Egypt, which relies on the Delta for food production.