{"id":153416,"date":"2021-01-13T12:30:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/amid-nile-dam-tensions-egypt-recalls-aswan-50-years-on\/"},"modified":"2021-01-13T12:30:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T09:30:01","slug":"amid-nile-dam-tensions-egypt-recalls-aswan-50-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/amid-nile-dam-tensions-egypt-recalls-aswan-50-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"#Amid Nile dam tensions, Egypt recalls Aswan 50 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Amid Nile dam tensions, Egypt recalls Aswan 50 years on<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Egypt's
\n Egypt’s Aswan High Dam and Lake Nasser: the building of the dam was spearheaded in the early 1950s by charismatic pan-Arabist president Gamal Abdel Nasser
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Half a century since Egypt’s ground-breaking Aswan dam was inaugurated with much fanfare, harnessing the Nile for hydropower and irrigation, the giant barrier is still criticised for its human and environmental toll.<\/p>\n


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It is also a stark reminder\u2014amid high tensions today as Addis Ababa fills its colossal Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) upstream\u2014of just how volatile politics over the life-giving, but finite, Nile water resources can be.<\/p>\n

The Aswan High Dam was spearheaded in the early 1950s by charismatic pan-Arabist president Gamal Abdel Nasser.<\/p>\n

Egypt, where the river provides some 97 percent of water for more than 100 million people, is the final section of the Nile’s 6,650-kilometre (4,130-mile), 10-nation journey to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

For millennia, the North African country was at the mercy of the seasonal rise and fall of the river, dependent on the rainfall in nations far upstream.<\/p>\n

But the 111-metre-high and 3.6-kilometre-wide Aswan High Dam, dwarfing the far smaller Aswan Low Dam built under British rule in 1902, crucially gave Cairo power to regulate the flow.<\/p>\n

Water power<\/b><\/p>\n

It was a “very important hydro-political act”, said geographer and author Habib Ayeb, a Nile expert who has taught at universities in Cairo and Paris.<\/p>\n

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\"An
\n An Egyptian ‘felucca’ sailing boat on the Nile at Aswan; before the dam was built, Egypt was for millennia at the mercy of the seasonal rise and fall of the river
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The dam was inaugurated on January 15, 1971, three months after Nasser’s death, by his successor Anwar al-Sadat.<\/p>\n

For the first time, “an Egyptian president decided to manage the Nile within Egypt”, to develop agriculture and the economy in the country, Ayeb added.<\/p>\n

For Egypt, an otherwise desert nation where 97 percent of the population lives along the green and fertile Nile banks, the dam revolutionised its relationship with the land.<\/p>\n

“The dam offered a reprieve to Egyptians by giving them enough water… and protecting them from the hazards of floods, which could be absolutely catastrophic,” said Ayeb.<\/p>\n

It also brought electricity to much of the country, a move Nasser said was key to developing the nation.<\/p>\n

Abdel Hakim Hassanein, who overlooks the river from his home close to the dam, some 700 kilometres south of Cairo, praised its construction.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t have electricity before, we used oil lamps,” the 68-year-old said, adding that work at the dem remains a key source of local jobs.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia, the second most populous nation in Africa, today uses similar arguments, saying its 145-metre (475-foot) GERD Blue Nile barrier\u2014set to be Africa’s largest hydro-electric dam\u2014is vital to provide power for its 110 million people.<\/p>\n

But Egypt, with the Arab world’s largest population, sees the GERD as an existential threat.<\/p>\n

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\"The
\n The Aswan dam created the vast Lake Nasser, which flooded the homeland of Egypt’s Nubian people, forcing tens of thousands of leave
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‘Belly of the desert’<\/b><\/p>\n

In the 1960s, many Egyptians also saw the Aswan dam as a threat to their lives\u2014in a different way.<\/p>\n

The lake behind the dam flooded the homeland of Egypt’s Nubian people, forcing tens of thousands to leave.<\/p>\n

“For the Nubians, the High Dam is a symbol of oppression,” said rights activist Fawzi Gayer. “It wiped out a civilisation.”<\/p>\n

Gayer was born just after his family was relocated to a dusty town its Nubian residents call Abu Simbel “Displacement”.<\/p>\n

“We’re talking about a community with a Nilotic identity that breathes the Nile… and we have been thrown into the belly of the desert,” said Gayer.<\/p>\n

“The elderly died of shock.”<\/p>\n

The Nubians’ long-running demand for a “right of return” was included in the 2014 constitution, but their lands have been swallowed by the 355-kilometre-long Lake Nasser, which stretches south into Sudan.<\/p>\n

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\"The
\n The Ramses II Temple at the archeological site of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt; the three-millenia old temples were moved in a giant rescue mission before they were drowned by rising waters in Lake Nasser
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It was not only people who had to move; the waters threatened to drown the three-millenium-old Pharaonic temples at Abu Simbel, kickstarting a massive UNESCO-led rescue mission that took eight years.<\/p>\n

The ancient complex, including giant stone carved statues, was dismantled and moved to a new location, in one of the world’s biggest archaeological rescue operations.<\/p>\n

There were environmental consequences too.<\/p>\n

The creation of the giant lake also upset the river’s delicate ecosystem, holding back the fertile silt deposits, causing erosion and increasing use of chemical fertilisers.<\/p>\n

‘Political bomb’<\/b><\/p>\n

For Ayeb, the dam also “proved to be a political bomb”.<\/p>\n

In building Aswan, Egypt and Sudan agreed a Nile water sharing deal, but did not include any other upstream nations, including Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

“It created the foundations for the break-up of the Nile basin as a framework for a common good,” said Ayeb.<\/p>\n

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\"The
\n The colossal statues of a seated Ramses II at the entrance of Abu Simbel archaeological site, rescued from the waters of the reservoir behind the Aswan Dam
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Today, Addis Ababa, Cairo and Khartoum are mired in long-running fractious talks over the filling and operation of the GERD dam.<\/p>\n

But, according to Ayeb, the critical challenge for Egypt is the management of the water it gets at present.<\/p>\n

“Even if Ethiopia stopped its dam, there wouldn’t be enough water,” he said, arguing Egypt should halt desert irrigation\u2014where nearly half the water is lost by evaporation\u2014and stop agricultural exports.<\/p>\n

Ayeb believes Cairo needs a new water and agricultural policy entirely.<\/p>\n

“Egypt must change everything,” he said.<\/p>\n\n

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Looming crisis of the much decreased fresh-water supply to Egypt’s Nile delta\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Amid Nile dam tensions, Egypt recalls Aswan 50 years on (2021, January 13)
\n retrieved 13 January 2021
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2021-01-nile-tensions-egypt-recalls-aswan.html<\/p>\n

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