Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr.

Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

The Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam on the River Nile and its Reservoir Lake Nasser

By James R. Walker Biology and Society, Bio 25 Dr. Jeanne Bohm Spring 1999

Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr. Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

The Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam on the River Nile and its reservoir Lake Nasser
Construction on the dam began near the city of Aswan in upper Egypt (south) in 1963, endorsed fully by prime minister Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was funded primarily by the former Soviet Union and UNESCO; a bureau of the United Nations. It is the largest dam in the world, completed in 1970 and formally inaugurated in 1971. Its cost was equivalent to one billion U.S. dollars (National Geographic). Today, the dam supplies about one-third of Egypt's electrical power. Lake Nasser can store at least two years of the Nile's average annual flow; it saved Egypt's rice and cotton crops during the global droughts of 1972 and 1973. Now farmers can harvest crops three to four times a year instead of once a year. About two million more acres of desert can now be cultivated and industry has increased significantly. These are the benefits everyone expected. However, there are many other ramifications of this human endeavor we did not explore. The environmental and cultural detrimental impact is well documented in a plethora of publications. The entire ecology of Egypt has been adversely affected. Instead of seasonal irrigation the Nile once provided, continuous cultivation of crops made possible by the dam has exhausted the soil which caused a dramatic increase in the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These, of course, run off into the Nile thus polluting it. Egypt's annual application of about one million tons of artificial fertilizer is an inadequate substitute for the forty
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Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr. Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

million tons of silt formerly deposited annually by the Nile flood. (Britannica Micropeadia). Ironically, much of the electricity generated by the dam is used by the fertilizer industry that sprung up due to the declining soil fertility (World Book Encyclopedia). What was intended to increase crop yields is reducing them, and what was supposed to produce increased fertile land is in fact rendering the land barren. In the delta region, excessive watering of land reclaimed from the desert has exacerbated the salinization problem. Three quarters of the gain in food production has been offset by salinization (River in the Desert). The buildup of salt, nitrates and chemical residues not only fouls the soil but has trickled into the ground water as well. Furthermore, there is a serious issue in the control of aquatic plants. These plants reproduce at such a rate that they would choke the entire water distribution system in one summer. Mechanical removal is safest but slow and costly. Poisonous chemicals can do the job in one night but cause health and ecosystem concerns (River in the Desert). Another dilemma Egypt faces is their receding delta. Ninety-eight percent of the silt once deposited along the farmland and delta are now trapped behind the dam. What nature once provided freely is costing million (Lucky 7 Web Productions, Internet). The dam has brought about biological threats as well. Biochemical oxygen demanding (BOD) pollutants have depleted the oxygen to such an extent that many fish species are threatened. The fishing Page 3 of 6

Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr. Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

industry has suffered greatly from the ninety-five percent reduction in sardines and the eighty-five percent reduction in shrimp. Additionally, the dam induced a reduction of phytoplankton in the region and has set in motion a chain reaction of reduction of species up the food chain. (CPS_ST SP98, Internet). This befouled water has another insidious effect. Scientists blame the dam for an increase of a disease called schistosomiasis, which causes intestinal and urinary infections. Schistosomiasis is transmitted by microscopic worms that breed in snails living in the Nile and its canals. The worms are discharged into the Nile and its canals, where they bore into the skin of people who wash clothes, bathe, or swim in the water. Before year-round irrigation became available, the snails died when the canals dried up. Today, however, the canals are full all year, enabling the snails to live and disease to spread rapidly (World Book Encyclopedia). Ecological havoc is not the only aftermath of the high dam, there are serious cultural consequences to consider. In Egypt Observed, authors Gougaud and Gouvion write:

"Thirty-five thousand men worked day and night for years to build this giant the price to be paid was the flooding of the land of the Nubians. For thousands of years the Nubians lived on the fava beans and the sourghum which the cultivated on the bank of the Nile. Their language was African, sweet and melodious. Their houses were crenellated and decorated with birds and bunches of flowers which the children painted in whitewash on the fronts. It was a simple, naive and magnificent land and it is no more."

The dislocated Nubians were moved to hastily constructed concrete settlements where they felt their way of life deliberately destroyed. Such
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Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr. Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

compulsory migrations have occurred twice before, in 1912 and 1932 when the earlier low dam at Aswan was built. In 1962, however, the scale of upheaval was tremendous and the sneaking suspicion that the rulers in Cairo did not give a damn about anything but their dam crept into the Nubian consciousness (River in the Desert). Desecration of many magnificent ancient structures revered by the Nubians and the world at large occurred too. The dam's reservoir, Lake Nasser, has permanently drowned some of the most ancient and beautiful temples. Although UNESCO was able to save two of the greatest temples, the temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel and the temple of Isis at Philae, literally dozens of temples left by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans are dissolving under the waters of the expansive Nasser reservoir (River in the Desert). It has been said that we are so consumed with whether we can do a thing that we do not stop to ponder if we should. It was at this point in writing this paper that 1 began to feel an aching in my soul so profound that it welled up inside me and did manifest itself by the drops slowly rolling down my face. Upon learning that a particular tribe of American Indians lived by one ethos and one ethos only, that when we do a thing we must think of our offspring seven generations in the future, I had to ask myself, why can't we.

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Bio 25, Biology and Society, Dr. Jeanne Bohm, LBCC, Spring 1999 Ecological and Cultural Impact of the Aswan High Dam By James R. Walker

Works Cited
Britannica Micropeadia. Vol.l, 15th edition, p.659. Gougaud, Henri and Gouvion, Colette. Egypt Observed Translated from French by Stephen Hardman, 1977. Internet: Infoterra:(THCLAXOO@UKCC.UKY.EDU). Lucky 7 Web productions. National Geographic. Vol. 124, no.4, Oct. 1963, p.587. Roberts, Paul William. River in the Desert. 1993 Tignor, Robert L. World Book Encyclopedia. Vol.1, 1997 edition, p.851.

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