CAIRO — A controversy has erupted between Egypt’s Water Ministry and the country’s media outlets over this year’s Nile flood forecasting.

The ministry had declared a state of emergency from May to August of this year due to drought, the worst to hit the Nile Basin in the past 100 years. Cairo was relying on this crisis to ensure the success of its new campaign to rationalize water usage, demanding that the citizens and farmers reduce their water consumption as much as possible.

However, Egyptian media outlets began circulating reports in late July that the flooding rates for the year increased and that heavy rain had fallen on the Ethiopian highlands. The controversy has been centered on reports that were prepared by Sudan’s Ministry of Electricity and the Egyptian irrigation mission to Sudan.

The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation denied the presence of any data indicating that the water flooding rate is higher than the average for the new water year, which starts in early August, and demanded that media outlets stop circulating news on the flooding that are not issued by the ministry.