Aswan Dam . Located at the geographic coordinates 23°58′11.57″N 32°52′41.46″E / 23.9698806, 32.8781833, the project began in 1952. The Nile had always marked life in Ancient Egypt, but since the dam was built from Aswan everything changed. The Egyptians will no longer know what a flood of the Nile is, nor will its waters fertilize the Egyptian fields, instead it also has benefits with the generation of electrical energy and the rational use of water.
Summary
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- 1 History
- 2 Construction history
- 1 Low Dam
- 2 High Dam
- 3 Beginnings of construction
- 4 Technical characteristics
- 5 Dam Benefits
- 6 Environmental issues
- 7 Termination
- 8 Image Gallery
- 9 external links
- 10Fuentes
History
Aswan is a city located on the right bank of the Nile, next to the first cataract. Two dams have been built in this area: the new Aswan High Dam and the smaller and older Aswan High Dam or Aswan Low Dam. In 1956 , the Egyptian Government of Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the construction of a new dam in Aswan, which posed a serious threat to the Nubian monuments. The Nile overflowed its banks annually, when the waters coming from Uganda and Sudanflowed into the lower Nile in summer. Since ancient times, these floods were what turned the land near the river into a fertile plain, ideal for agriculture, by leaving a sediment of nutrients and minerals in the soil, the silt. However, the unpredictable alternation of the level of the floods led to the loss of entire crops due to flooding or drought and the consequent famine in the population, for which it was considered necessary to build a dam that would regulate the level of the floods to protect the farmland and cotton fields.
construction history
Low Dam
Construction was started by the British in 1899 and completed in 1902. The initial design was 1,900m long by 54m high and was soon found to be inadequate, so it was increased in two phases: from 1907 to 1912 and from 1929 to 1933. When the dam was about to overflow in 1946 it was decided that, instead of increasing its height for the third time, a second dam would be built eight kilometers upriver.
high dam
satellite photo
Located at the geographical coordinates 23°58′11.57″N 32°52′41.46″E / 23.9698806, 32.8781833, the project began in 1952 , exactly after the Nasser revolution and, in principle, the United States would help finance the construction with a loan of 270 million dollars. The offer of help was withdrawn in mid- 1956 and the Egyptian government set out to continue the project alone, using the revenues provided by the Suez Canal to aid in construction. However, in 1958The Soviet Union intervened (at the height of the Cold War for dominance in Africa) possibly paying a third of the cost of the immense stone and clay dam as a gift. Aside from this monetary aid, they provided technicians and heavy machinery and the design was carried out by the Russian Zuk Hydroproject institute .
Beginnings of construction
Construction began in 1960 . The High Dam, El saad al Aali, was fully completed on July 21 , 1970 ; In the first stage, the reservoir (Lake Nasser), which was completed in 1964 , began to fill with the dam still under construction, reaching its full capacity in 1976 . This reservoir caused concern among archaeologists because the [[Abu Simbel]] complex, as well as dozens of other temples, would be submerged under water. in 1960Twenty-four of these monuments were located, excavated, and moved to safer locations by a UNESCO-sponsored rescue operation or donated to countries that collaborated in the rescue, such as the [[Temple of Debod]], now in Madrid , Spain.
technical characteristics
The High Dam is 3,600 m long and 980 m wide at the base, 40 m wide at the top and 111 m high, with a material volume of 43 million m³. In maximum capacity conditions it can output 11,000 m³ of water per second. It has additional emergency spillways for a volume of 5,000 m³ and the Toshka channel, which connects the reservoir with the Toshka depression. This reservoir, called Lake Nasser, is 480 km long and 16 km at its widest point; its surface area is 6,000 km² and contains between 150 and 165 km³ of water. It flooded much of lower Nubia and displaced more than 90,000 people.
Dam Benefits
The effects of the dangerous floods of 1964 and 1973 and the terrible droughts such as those of 1972 – 1973 and 1983 – 1984were mitigated. A new fishing industry has been created around Lake Nasser and continues to struggle to prosper due to its distance from any significant market. With a hydroelectric output of 2.1 gigawatts, the dam houses 12 generators of 175 megawatts each. Electricity supply began in 1967, when the dam reached its zenith of production, generating approximately half of the electricity needed for the consumption of all of Egypt (around 15% in 1998) and allowing, for the first time, the electrical connection in the most Egyptian peoples.
environmental issues
The construction of the great dam of Aswan, today Sadd al-Alí, located in Upper Egypt and intended to modify the physical environment to control the flooding of the Nile and produce energy, had serious consequences on the fragile balance of the ancient ecosystem, especially because the engineers who designed it did not take into account the ecological impact that its construction would have on the fauna, the flora, and also on the economy of the peoples who inhabited the banks of the Nile.
The environmental consequences have been numerous: excessive sedimentation upstream, erosion downstream, disappearance of animal species that migrated along the river, destruction and salinization of the Nile delta (the reduction in river flow has caused the salty waters of the Mediterranean Sea enter the land along the coast near the mouth), decrease in productivity in fisheries, emigration of marine animals when the salinity barrier is removed, rise in the water table level in the nearby fertile plains, river pollution caused by fertilizers , herbicides and pesticides .
Another negative consequence for the population has been the increased health risk since the agricultural irrigation canals and the banks of Lake Nasser are the perfect habitat for animals that transmit diseases, such as the malaria mosquito ( Anopheles mosquito ) and the snails that spread the bilharziasis parasite ( Schistosoma sp. ).
Termination
The High Dam, El saad al Aali, was fully completed on July 21 , 1970 ; In the first stage, the reservoir, which was completed in 1964 , began to fill with the dam still under construction, reaching its full capacity in 1976 .
