Aswan High Dam
Egypt is famous for its long and varied history, as well as its rich cultural heritage. All of these things are well-deserved. One of Egypt’s more recent and rarely talked about achievements is the Aswan High Dam, a mechanical miracle that provides a lot of the country’s drinking water and electricity.
Even though the ancient Egyptian monuments, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx, are some of Egypt’s most famous and well-known achievements, the Aswan High Dam is one of Egypt’s more recent and less well-known achievements. In the next few paragraphs, we’ll talk more about the Aswan Dam’s location, history, interesting facts, and effects. The Aswan Dam is a symbol of strength, political savvy, and the will to control one’s own future. It is also where a new Egypt was born.
Location of the Aswan Dam:
In the beautiful city of Aswan is a big dam that has been an important part of Egypt’s history for as long as it has been there. The dam has a towering height of 111 meters, a towering length of 3,830 meters, a base width of 980 meters, a spillway capacity of 11,000 cubic meters per second, an annual output of about 10,042 Gifawhatts, and 43 million cubic meters of building materials. It is a technical and scientific masterpiece.
History of High Dam:
In the 11th century, a well-known Arab polymath and engineer named Ibn al-Haytham is thought to have made the first known attempt to build a dam somewhere near Aswan. This happened because Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the Fatimid Caliph, asked you to find a way to stop the flooding caused by the Nile. When we tried the idea out in the real world, we found that it did not work. Some of the following can be found in these temples:
The British government would lead the second effort to build the Aswan Dam, since they were the ones who started building the first dam across the Nile in 1898 and kept working on it until 1902. At the time, Sir William Wilcocks was in charge of the project, which was called the “Aswan Low Dam.” Between 1954 and 1959, the third attempt to build the Aswan High dam took place. During this time, an engineer named Adrian Daninios, who was half Greek and half Egyptian, made plans for a New Aswan dam. The Farouk government didn’t seem interested in the ideas, so they went with Harold Edwin Hurst’s idea. Because Sudan and Ethiopia don’t lose much water through evaporation, the water was supposed to be stored in those two countries.
On the other hand, this effort didn’t last very long because Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Officer movement and Daninio’s plan was put into action. Both the United States and the United Kingdom were worried about how much power Russia could gain in the area, and both countries offered to help pay for the Dam. This led to Nasser getting a loan of 270 million US dollars in exchange for taking charge of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nasser thought of himself as a leader and a neutral person. Nasser played for power by asking the U.S. to give him weapons that could only be used for defense. After Russia offered to give him the weapons, he was able to get 56 million dollars from Britain and 14 million dollars from the U.K. Russia had already offered to give them the weapons.
After a series of political events and disagreements between Egypt, the United States of America, and the USSR (now called Russia), as well as fears that the temple of Abu Simbel would be flooded, the USSR kept offering help for the Dam. The Soviet Hydro project Institute planned and helped build the Aswan high dam, which started being built in 1960. Also, it was built with the help of 25,000 Egyptian engineers. The Dam was finished in 1976, and the reservoir was filled to its fullest level the same year.
Why the Aswan High Dam is Important?
What is it about the Aswan Dam that makes it such a significant building? “Well, there are a few good reasons for it,” is the answer to that question. Here are some of those reasons:
Before the Aswan Dam was built, there was no way to stop the flooding that the Nile caused. Even though the flooding did make the soil better, it also had the potential to destroy whole crops and cause a severe drought. Before the Aswan High dam was built, it was hard to imagine a flood that was completely under control, even though there was already a dam.
Egypt’s agriculture depends a lot on irrigation because it doesn’t get enough rain. The dam lets out an average of 55 cubic kilometers of water each year, which is very important to many places around the Nile and Delta.
Since it was built between 1972 and 1973 and 1983 and 1987, the Aswan Dam has saved Egypt from several droughts that would have been very bad if it hadn’t been there.
Another big benefit of the Aswan High Dam is that it can make electricity. It has twelve generators, each of which can produce 175 megawatts of power. Some rural areas got electricity for the very first time because of this project, which made an amazing 2.1 gigawatts of power.
Archaeology has also benefited from the building of the Aswan dam because more than 22 sites and architectural complexes were saved from being flooded.
In the end, the Aswan Dam has had a number of unintended effects, even though it has had a number of good effects. Some of these effects are waterlogging, an increase in the saltiness of the soil, and a drop in the number of fish caught in the area. Despite all of its problems, however, life as we know it simply could not exist without it. This group, on the other hand, is not the majority.
