Aswan High Dam

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Dam to control Nile River waters.

The first dam at Aswan, Egypt, on the Nile River, was completed in 1902 and heightened twice, in 1912 and 1934, to expand its capacity. This first dam, actually a barrage without the capability of holding multiyear water, proved insufficient for the growing water and power needs of Egypt, so a larger dam and reservoir, the Aswan High Dam, was constructed from 1960 to 1971. The High Dam is of embankment construction, 365 feet high and nearly 3,300 feet wide at its base. Lake Nasser, impounded behind the High Dam, is 300 miles long and 10 miles wide at the widest point. The power station at Aswan has a yearly capacity of 2.1 gigawatts at full pool.

In March 1953 the Free Officers of Egypt's army, which had overthrown King Farouk in a military coup, began planning for a high dam on the Nile some 5 miles south of the older British-built Aswan Dam. The U.S. and British governments and the World Bank agreed to finance construction conditional on Egypt's acceptance of Western government control of Egypt's economy, no new Egyptian arms purchases, and open bidding for the construction contract (excluding communist countries). Despite its reluctance, Egypt accepted these terms, but U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, alarmed by the ties to the Soviet Union of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's president, subsequently vetoed the deal. In response, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, intending to use canal tolls to pay for the dam's construction; this created an international incident.

In 1958 the Soviet Union financed the dam, providing the equivalent of $330 million, and work commenced in 1960. The hydroelectric power plant began operation in 1968. The reservoir formed by the dam created Lake Nasser, forcing the relocation of the Nubian people living upstream and generating an international effort by UNESCO to rescue antiquities within the soon-to-be-flooded valley. The temples at Philae and elsewhere upstream, dating from dynastic Egypt, were flooded. Ramses's Temple at Abu Simbel with its colossal statuary was raised to overlook the lake.

The dam's completion permitted downstream reclamation of 675,000 acres and the conversion of an additional one million acres to perennial irrigation. Twelve electric turbines initially provided 60 percent of Egypt's electrical needs, but economic growth has reduced this percentage. Increased use of irrigation without adequate drainage has caused waterlogging and salinization downstream. The dam has also been criticized for causing a variety of other adverse environmental consequences.

Bibliography

Nyrop, Richard F., ed. Egypt: A Country Study, 4th edition. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1983.

Said, R. The River Nile: Geology, Hydrology, and Utilization. Oxford, U.K.: Pergamon, 1993.

Wucher King, Joan. Historical Dictionary of Egypt. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984.

— DAVID WALDNER UPDATED BY GREGORY B. BAECHER