Timelapse Shows Concrete Replacing Greenery in Africa’s Most Populous City

Cairo has seen rapid urban expansion to accommodate its nearly 20 million residents, with large-scale road and infrastructure projects peaking since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in 2014, often coming at the expense of the city’s trees and green spaces.

Newsweek has contacted Egypt’s Ministry of Environment for comment.

Why it Matters

In Cairo, less dense upscale new districts and expanded cities boast landscaped green zones—visible in the new capital—while older, less affluent neighborhoods see their tree cover vanish, making green spaces vital for cooling unevenly distributed.

Experts warn that climate change will exacerbate Egypt’s arid climate with higher temperatures, erratic rainfall, rising seas, and worsening drought. Any reduction in Nile flows, combined with population growth, could deepen water scarcity and strain ties with Nile Basin neighbors.

A satellite image captured in May shows part of Greater Cairo’s lost greenery, including in the Warraq island.
A satellite image captured in May shows part of Greater Cairo’s lost greenery, including in the Warraq island.
Google Earth Pro

What To Know

A Copernicus Sentinel Hub timelapse from 2016-2017 to August 2025 reveals how urban expansion replaced greenery across the Egyptian capital, also known as Greater Cairo, to include the adjacent Giza governorate.

Al-Warraq Island, a largely agricultural Nile island between Cairo and Giza, home to over 100,000 residents, illustrates encroachments for a remodeling plan. Islanders have been staging protests against government plans and evictions.

The island remains “under siege,” as the government still seeks to transform the island into a global commercial hub, according to the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP).

Some of Cairo’s oldest districts are recognized for their unique urban and architectural heritage, such as the Maadi suburb along the Nile corniche, where the community is pushing back to prevent the loss of some of Egypt’s most historic trees, such as the century-old Eucalyptus trees.

Another major green suburb is Heliopolis, established in the beginning o the 20th century and home to some of the oldest trees, including ficus, acacia and palm trees.

About 2,500 trees were cut down between 2019 and 2020 as part of road-widening works, Reuters reported. In 2021, a local heritage-preserving group said they tagged 341 endangered trees after prominent cultural celebrities to prevent their removal.

Cairo lost roughly 910,000 square meters of green spaces between 2017 and 2020, according to local figures reported by the state-owned Ahram Online website.

Egypt hosted the United Nations climate summit COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022 and if highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including increased heat stress and Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect—when cities become hotter than nearby rural areas because buildings and pavement trap heat and vegetation is limited, according to a 2025 assessment by Earth Systems and Environment.

The government denied plans to cut iconic trees in old suburbs, though the scenes have become customary in streets for a few years.

What People Are Saying

Egyptian urban planner and researcher Ibrahim Ezeldin wrote in the Tahrir Institue for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) on June 4: “The answer requires reevaluating the main priorities and goals of development. There should be a shift away from top-down mega projects in favor of local, community-led, initiatives that prioritize the interests of the people regardless of the interests of government agencies and private investors.”

Egyptian Society of Landscape Architects (ESLA) in 2024: “The consequences of this vanishing green cover are far-reaching. The loss of trees and vegetation reduces the country’s ability to sequester carbon dioxide, a key driver of global warming, and disrupts the delicate balance of local ecosystems. This, in turn, threatens the diverse array of plant and animal species that call these habitats home, further contributing to the erosion of Egypt’s natural heritage.”

Egyptian Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad told Youm7 outlet in 2024: “Coordination was made with the Cairo Governorate to form a technical committee responsible for developing a comprehensive greening plan for the governorate, and to issue a decision prohibiting the cutting or excessive pruning of trees without consulting the committee, in coordination with the Ministry of Local Development and the Ministry of Agriculture on the greening file.”

Massive road construction projects have erased some of the oldest remaining green spaces in Egypt’s capital.
Massive road construction projects have erased some of the oldest remaining green spaces in Egypt’s capital.
Amr Nabil/AP Photo

What Happens Next

The Egyptian government launched a nationwide tree-planting initiative aiming at 100 million trees—roughly matching the country’s population— a move that could curb deforestation impacts.

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