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High Dam
The High Dam or Aswan Dam is one of the water dams located on the Nile River in the southern region of Egypt, where it was built during the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser with the help of the Soviets, and this dam helped the process of controlling the flow of water, and mitigating the effects of the Nile flood, as it is used in Electricity generation.
Its length is approximately three thousand meters; the base width is nine hundred and eighty meters, and the width of its summit is about forty meters. The size of the dam’s body is about forty-three million cubic meters of cement, iron, and some other materials. It can flow during one second eleven thousand cubic meters of water.
High Dam Building
The High Dam was built in the year sixty nine hundred and sixty AD, and its final cost was estimated at nearly one billion dollars, a third of which was deducted by the Soviet Union. Four hundred Soviet experts worked on its construction, and its construction was completed in one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight AD, when it was officially opened in the year one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one AD.
It should be noted that the first to mention the construction of this dam was the Muslim scholar Al-Hassan bin Al-Haytham, who did not have the opportunity to implement his idea because of the lack of machinery needed to build it at that time.
The positive and negative effects of building the high dam
The construction of this dam had many negative and positive effects on Egypt and other countries, and one of its positive effects is that it provided protection for Egypt from floods and droughts, as Lake Nasser reduces the rush of water, by storing it in order to benefit from it in the years of drought.
He also worked on expanding the area of agricultural lands thanks to the availability of water, increasing the capacity to reclaim land and increasing its area from 5.5 to 7.9 million acres, in addition to the diversification of agricultural crops that require large quantities of water such as rice, sugar cane, and the conversion of the irrigation system from pond irrigation to permanent irrigation .
As for its negative effects, it is represented by the fact that Lake Nasser has flooded many Nubian villages in Egypt and in northern Sudan, which led to the displacement of its people, in addition to depriving the Nile Valley region of nutritious silt, the erosion of the delta beaches, and the increase in slaughter beside the river bases bases.
Some estimates indicate that a large amount of Lake Nasser water is subject to evaporation due to the very hot climate, in addition to the growth of many plants, which means an increase in the transpiration process and thus an increase in the rate of evaporation. Some also see it as a military threat to Egypt.
