Aswan High Dam

Land lost from flooding of Lake Nasser:

Although there were some land gains from the building of the dam, there were much more losses behind the dam where the land was flooded to make the reservoir of Lake Nasser. Many people(120,000) were moved and made homeless as well as losing their farmland.

Water-borne diseases increase:

As the water in both the reservoir and irrigation channels is contained and in a lot of places static, this promotes the build up of water snails which carry the disease bilharzia. Many other diseases also increase as they are not 'flushed away' by the flow of the River Nile.

Flood control

Control of flooding is carried out by the dam. By keeping so much water back in Lake Nasser, the River Nile rarely floods the surrounding farmland any more.

Irrigation water for nearby farmland:

Development of irrigation channels from Lake Nasser, takes water from the reservoir to the nearby desert to make farmland for watering crops. The electricity pumps the water there.

Electricity for homes and industry:

HEP is used to generate electricity that is taken to homes and industries . Today it provides about 15% of Egypt's electricity needs.

New farmland created:

The act of keeping back the water from the River Nile has lowered its level, effectively creating new farmland by the river sides. This is also less prone to flooding. The country's irrigated area increased by 1/3.

Brick industry

The red-brick construction industry, which consisted of hundreds of factories that used Nile sediment deposits along the river, has been negatively affected.

The Disadvantages of the Aswan Dam

,,

The Advantages of the Aswan Dam

1. water is made available for homes and industries 2. develops Egypt 3. fish stocks in lake 4.electricity for home and farm use 5. irrigation 6. new farmland

Location

Aswan is about 600 km south of Cairo the capital of Egypt, near the Sudan boarder. The Aswan dam is an embankment dam which means that there is a triangular shaped block of granite that holds the water back.

Bilharzia

Bilharzia is a human disease caused by parasitic worms called Schistosomes. Over one billion humans are at risk worldwide and approximately 300 millions are infected. Bilharzia is common in the tropics where ponds, streams and irrigation canals harbor bilharzia-transmitting snails. Parasite larvae develop in snails from which they infect humans, their definitive host, in which they mature and reproduce.

High set-up costs of building the dam:

Egypt had to borrow a great deal of money to set this dam up from the Russians. Egypt will be repaying the loans back for a very long time and so it is doubtful whether this will help Egypt to develop at all

Fish stocks in Lake Nasser:

Fish live in the lake and can be fished more easily by those fishermen who used to fish in the River Nile. This should improve their livelihoods and fish stocks can be replaced more easily. Also creates tourism via 'game fishing'.

Natural flooding / silt is lost:

Flooding is an important natural event which enables silt to be placed on farmland, making it more fertile. Without this flooding, the farmland in front of the dam is becoming less fertile. Yields of crops will drop and eventually people may lose money or starve. In addition, those who do not have the luxury of an irrigation channel, will suffer from a lack of water entirely.

Symptoms

Heavy infestation (many parasites) may cause fever, chills, lymph node enlargement, and liver and spleen enlargement. Initial invasion of the skin may cause itching and a rash (swimmer's itch). In this condition, the schistosome is destroyed within the skin. Intestinal symptoms include abdominal pain and diarrhea (which may be bloody). Urinary symptoms may include frequent urination, painful urination (dysuria), and blood in the urine (hematuria).

Waterlogging

Heavy year-round irrigation, groundwater levels remained high with little fluctuation leading to waterlogging.. Since most of the farmland did not have proper subsurface drainage to lower the groundwater table, it gradually affected crop yields. A total of 2.1 million hectares thus required subsurface drainage at a cost that exceeded the construction cost of the High Dam. Only 20 years after completion of the High Dam the problem was seriously addressed and a large-scale drainage program was initiated.

Fishery in the Delta and the Mediterranean.

Mediterranean fishing and brackish water lake fishery declined after the dam was finished because nutrients that used to flow down the Nile to the Mediterranean were trapped behind the dam. For example, the Sardine catch off the Egyptian coast declined from 18,000 tons in 1962 to a mere 460 tons in 1968, but then gradually recovered to 8,590 tons in 1992.

Reservoir sedimentation.

Sediment deposited in the reservoir is lowering the water storage capacity of Lake Nasser. It would take about another 900 years until the live storage zone would be completely sedimented and operation of the dam would become impossible some time before that.

Silt builds up in Lake Nasser:

Silt, that would normally make its way down river gets trapped behind the dam, lowering the level of the reservoir. In addition, this silt would have made its way onto farmland and onto the Nile Delta and this is now causing farmland to become less fertile and the Nile Delta to stop growing. Also, Cairo brick makers are suffering as they no longer have enough silt deposits to make their bricks from.

Impact on currents and salinity in the Mediterranean.

The Aswan Dam tends to increase the salinity of the Mediterranean Sea, and this affects the Mediterranean's outflow current into the Atlantic Ocean. This current can be traced thousands of kilometers into the Atlantic.

Facts

The Aswan High Dam is 3600 metres long and 111 metres high. The Soviet Union helped the Egyptian government to build the dam. The Aswan High Dam has 12 turbines which generate over 10 billion kilowatts of electricity every year. Construction started on the dam in 1960 and it was completed in 1971. 30 000 Egyptian people worked day and night to build the Aswan High Dam. Lake Nasser was created behind the Aswan High Dam. It is the largest artificial lake in the World (560 kms in length). It is named after Gamal Abdul Nasser, the former President of Egypt.

Coastal erosion

The High Dam has accelerated erosion of coastlines (due to lack of sediment, which was once brought by the Nile) in Egypt and all along the eastern Mediterranean. Coastal erosion occurred and efforts to control it were made even before the construction of the High Dam. This erosion may to some extent have been caused by the limited trapping of sediments behind the Old Aswan Dam. The High Dam accelerated erosion and made the construction of further expensive coastal protection works in the Nile Delta necessary.

Helping Egypt to develop

The formation of the Lake Nasser reservoir creates HEP opportunities and controls flooding. This helps Egypt to develop in two ways. Firstly it provides the electricity needed for people and industry to increase their quality of life and to stop the flooding which ruins so many livelihoods and claims lives.

Pollution from fertilizers

The increased use of artificial fertilizers in farmland below the dam has caused chemical pollution which the traditional river sediment did not do.

Evaporation from Lake Nasser is very high:

This is an extremely hot area of the world. Evaporation from Lake Nasser is very high as a consequence and this means a lot of water is lost.

Irrigated farmland suffers from salination:

When water evaporates in these hot areas, it brings salts to the soil surface. This is called salinisation and it is not good for the soils or the crops. If too much salt rises to the surface, it can kill the plants and reduce yields.