The flooding had become inevitable. Every winter, amid heavy rains and storms, the Mediterranean Sea would rise and spill over into fisherman Aziz Lasheen’s low-lying village in Egypt’s northern governorate of Kafr el-Sheikh.
As water poured into the village of Mastroua, it would destroy homes, saturate farmland with saltwater and cover the road Lasheen and others walked to reach their fishing boats.
“As fishermen and farmers, we were scared to go to work as the rising water covered up the shore. The tide was so high,” the 33-year-old said.
That meant his income dropped by 70 percent every winter.
“During that time of the