Lake Nasser

For more information on Lake Nasser, visit Britannica.com.

A reservoir of the Nile located in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, created by the Aswan High Dam after 1971.

Lake Nasser, created by the construction of the High Dam at Aswan, is 298 miles long and 10 miles wide at its widest point, with a water capacity of 130 million acre-feet, of which 24 million acre-feet serve as dead storage for sediment and 73 million acre-feet as live storage. About one-quarter of all the Nile waters entering Lake Nasser are lost to evaporation and seepage. The largest man-made lake in the world, Lake Nasser has a major role in Egypt's fishing industry, yielding 15,000 to 25,000 tons per annum. Original hopes that Lake Nasser would also support agriculture in its vicinity, however, have yet to be realized.

In 1978 the Ministry of Irrigation authorized construction of the Tushka canal to carry away surplus water from Lake Nasser to the New Valley Project in the western desert in case a high flood upstream caused Lake Nasser's waters to pass over the spillway, leading to damage to barrages and bridge abutments downstream. This emergency canal was used for the first time in the late 1990s, at a time of unusually high Nile flows. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Tushka diversion was a source of international controversy in that the Egyptian government announced plans for routine diversions of lake water into the western desert to reclaim land. This came at a time when the ten riparian states of the Nile Basin were attempting to reach an accord on future uses of the limited waters of the river.

The lake is named for Egypt's president who held office at the time of the building of the dam, Gamal Abdel Nasser. The rising lake displaced over 100,000 Nubian inhabitants, and flooded sites of ancient Egyptian buildings such as Abu Simbel. Creation of the lake in the early 1970s led to an international rescue effort to save dynastic-era antiquities of the valley behind the dam.

Bibliography

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

Waterbury, John. Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1979.

White, Gilbert F. "Environmental Effects of the High Dam at Aswan." Environment 30, no. 7 (1988): 34 - 41.

— ARTHUR GOLDSCHMIDT
UPDATED BY GREGORY B. BAECHER

Lake Nasser
View from Abu Simbel
Map showing the location of the lake
Coordinates	22°25′N 31°45′E / 22.417°N 31.75°E / 22.417; 31.75Coordinates: 22°25′N 31°45′E / 22.417°N 31.75°E / 22.417; 31.75
Lake type	Reservoir
Primary  inflows	Nile
Primary  outflows	Nile
Basin  countries	Egypt, Sudan
Max. length	550 km (340 mi)
Max. width	35 km (22 mi)
Surface area	5,250 km2 (2,030 sq mi)
Average depth	25.2 m (83 ft)
Max. depth	180 m (590 ft)
Water volume	132 km3 (51,000 sq mi)[1]
Shore  length1	7,844 km (25,730,000 ft)
Surface  elevation	183 m (600 ft)
References	[1]
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Lake Nasser (Arabic: بحيرة ناصر‎; transliterated: Buhayrat Nasir) is a vast reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Strictly, "Lake Nasser" refers only to the much larger portion of the lake that is in Egyptian territory (83% of the total), with the Sudanese preferring to call their smaller body of water Lake Nubia (Arabic: بحيرة نوبية‎; transliterated: Buhayrat Nubiya). The area of Sudan-administered Wadi Halfa Salient was largely flooded by Lake Nasser/Lake Nubia.

It was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the waters of the Nile between 1958 and 1970. The lake is named after President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who initiated the controversial High Dam project.

Contents 1 Description 2 History 3 Sportfishing in the lake 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

Description

The Lake is some 550 km long and 35 km across at its widest point, which is near the Tropic of Cancer. It covers a total surface area of 5,250 km² and has a storage capacity of some 157 km³ of water.

History

Sunset over Lake Nasser

The Egyptian name is in honor of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was the main proponent of the controversial High Dam project.

When Lake Nasser was being created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, across the Nile, between 1958 and 1970, the anticipated rising waters behind the dam required major relocation projects that were carried out during the 1960s. There were 18 ancient temples in the area.

Lake Nasser from the International Space Station, 2005

Several important Nubian and Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites were dismantled block by block and moved to higher ground, most notably Abu Simbel. The prior Sudanese river-port and railway terminal of Wadi Halfa was lost beneath the waters, and a new town was built nearby; and Egypt's entire Nubian community from the upper reaches of the Nile – numbering several hundred thousand people – saw their villages disappear and were forced to relocate.

Rising lake levels through the 1990s resulted in what the Egyptians term the spilling over of waters, others claim deliberate leakage, westwards into the Sahara Desert, forming the Toshka Lakes beginning in 1998.

Ferries take passengers and road vehicles between Aswan in Egypt and Wadi Halfa, from where the railway goes to Khartoum, capital of Sudan. Since it is prohibited to cross the Sudan-Egypt border on land, and no paved roads connect the two countries, the ferries are the only alternative to air travel; currently, they people constitute a link in the Cairo-Cape Town Highway.

Sportfishing in the lake

Sportfishing among tourists, especially for Nile Perch, has become increasingly popular, both on the shore and from boats.

See also

Africa portal

• Aswan Dam

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Data Summary: Lake Nasser

External links

• http://lexicorient.com/e.o/lake_nasser.htm Lake Nasser data
• Lake Nasser Fishing
• NASA Newsroom
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• http://www.alovelyworld.com/webegypt/htmgb/nasser.htm
• http://www.alovelyworld.com/webegypt/htmgb/egy74.htm
• http://www.horus.demon.co.uk/Nile/Nasser.html
• http://www.360cities.net/area/lake-nasser

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