Speaking at a United Nations water conference in Alexandria, Egypt, NASA scientist Essam Heggy told the assembly that NASA should use its ground-penetrating satellite radar to find water in the mostly desert covered Middle East and east Africa. According to Heggy, the radar can find water buried over half a mile beneath the surface, providing a guide for the construction of wells and artificial oasis. In particular, Eggy noted that the Darfur region of southern Sudan, where resource scarcity has contributed to genocide and vicious insurgency, covers an area once rife with lakes, and thus may very well contain vast undiscovered, underground reservoirs.