Where is it ?
Aswan is a city in southern Egypt . The capital of Aswan Government , the cleanest and most beautiful city in Egypt.
Aswan is located on the eastern bank of the Nile about 981 kilo meters from Cairo . It is the gateway to southern Egypt , an important city for trade between Egypt , other African countries and a gateway to Sudan .
It is a famous old town , a tourist attraction and a commercial center since ancient times .
Aswan is one of the driest places in the world , with African climatic characteristics .
Since May 13, 2006 , Aswan has not measured any precipitation ( deposition ) .
In ancient Egypt , Aswan was considered the birthplace of the Egyptian nation.
Aswan is located north of the first Nile Waterfall . It is a commercial center between Egypt and Nubia.
Historically , the gate from southern Egypt to Nubia was the meeting point of water transport and camel caravans .
In ancient Egyptian times , it was formerly a center of trade with Sudan and Ethiopia .
Its name is said to be synonymous with the ancient Egyptian word “ trade “ ( The Coptic word “ Aswan “ means “ market “ .
In ancient times , there was a hostel ( residence ) and barracks for the army , also it was an important commercial station with southern neighbours .
It is now the regional administration , industrial and commercial center .
There are steel , aluminium , chemical fertilisers , sugar , textiles , leather tanning , cement , other industries , iron ore and stone mining .
The city of Aswan is small and it can be visited entirely on foot .
The population in Aswan is about 1.1 million . Since the beginning of the 19th century , Aswan has become a popular winter resort .
It still a unique tourist resort .
Tourism flourishes in Aswan , where a large number of temples and shrines have been preserved in the city such as the famous Philae temple and the temple of Abu Simbel .
The museum of Elfentin contains historical monuments of the Government .
Transport routes in Aswan are available in all directions with railways and roads connecting Cairo , Alexandria and other cities , and an international airport .
Aswan Dam
The Aswan High Dam or the High Dam is a water Dam on the Nile River in southern Egypt . It was established during the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the soviets helped build it .
The dam helped a lot in controlling the flow of water and mitigating the effects of the Nile flood . Used to generate electricity in Egypt .
The length of the dam is 3600 meters , the width of the base is 980 meters , the width of the summit is 40 meters , and the height is 111 meters . The volume of the body of the dam is 43 million cubic meters of cement , iron and other materials , and it can pass through the dam a flow of water up to 11,000 cubic meters of water per second .
Construction of the dam began in 1960 and the total cost was estimated at one billion dollars , one-third written off by the Soviet Union . 400 Soviet experts worked on the dam and completed its construction in 1968 .
The last 12 generators were installed in 1970 and the dam was officially opened in 1971 .
However , the High Dam reduced the fertility of the Nile River and did not compensate the estuaries in Damietta and Ras El Bar with silt , which threatens to sink the delta after more than a hundred years and due to some other factors such as global warming and melting of ice in the north and South Poles , with a negative impact from the ozone layer.
It should be noted here that the first person to refer to the construction of this dam was the Arab Muslim scholar Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham ( born in 965 AD and died in 1029 AD ) .
And who did not have the opportunity to implement his idea due to the lack of necessary machines to build it during his reign.
The Aswan High Dam is one of the largest of the seven dams in the world , and the second largest reservoir in the world.
There are two dams in the south of Aswan .
First : Aswan Low Dam
In 1898 , the British colonial authorities began building the Aswan Dam , which was completed in 1902 . It was the largest dam in the world at that time , and the old one was built in 1902 , it was from granite .
The Dam is located 5.6 kilometres from the city . The Dam is 53 meters high and 2,152 meters long , and the reservoir stores 5.3 billion cubic meters of water and can generate 345,000 Kilowatts of electricity . It provides water for 570 hectares of agricultural land .
The purpose of building a low dam was to solve many problems caused by rapid population growth .
At the time , there was a goal that using water dams to control the Nile’s flooding in the summer , to increase agricultural production and solve the problems caused by population growth . Unfortunately , this goal was not achieved , so finally it was decided to build the Aswan High Dam .
The second : the Aswan High Dam
It is the world-famous High Dam , a miracle of engineering at the time . The Aswan Dam is located 12 kilometres south of the city and 7.2 kilometres from the Low Dam , and it is the largest dam in the world .
The Aswan High Dam was built in January 1960 and was completed in July 1970 , 35 thousand Egyptian workers worked hard for 10 years to complete it .
Germany and the Soviet Union helped to complete the High Dam , it costed 10 Billion USD .
The amount of building materials used is 17 times that were used in the Great Pyramid of Giza . Its volume is 92 times the pyramids of Giza , and it is 203.79 million cubic meters . The Dam is 111 meters high and 3600 meters long .
Benefits of Aswan Dam :
There is no wonder of that President Sadat called it “ the century-old Egyptian project alongside the pyramid of Pharaoh “ . Today it provides irrigation water and electricity to all of Egypt , as well as the overall benefits of flood control and transportation .
The comprehensive usage project is divided into 6 parts of the main project .
The Aswan High Dam is considered one of the best investments in the history of the Egyptian economy because of the following :
It can provide 74 billion cubic meters of stable and reliable irrigation water every year , which guarantees permanent irrigation of 71.5 million acres of cotton fields in different areas of the Nile Valley .
It also changed crops in Upper Egypt from one crop to two or three crops per year .
The annual power generation capacity is 10 billion kilowatt hours , which is nearly half of the total power generation . It is transported to Cairo and Lower Egypt through two high-voltage transmission lines with a capacity of 500 kilovolts and supplied locally .
In addition , from the dam to the upstream area , a 500 km long artificial lake “ Lake Nasser “ formed . The “ Nasser Reservoir “ is the second largest artificial reservoir .
Components of the Aswan High Dam
After numerous international studies and research , the High Dam was designed to be of the cumulative type and equipped with a deaf core of the clay , and a vertical curtain cutting the water , the level of the bottom of the dam is 85 meters , the level of the top of the dam is 196 meters , the length of the dam at the summit is 3830 meters , the length of the dam in the main course of the Nile is 520 meters , the width of the base of the dam is 980 . The width of the dam at the top is 40 meters , the depth of the vertical injection curtain is 140 meters .
Storage Lake
The reserved water in front of the High Dam is a large artificial lake with characteristics as follows :
The length of the lake is 500 km . The average width of the lake is 10 km .
The total storage capacity is 162 billion cubic meters . The dead storage capacity is 32 billion cubic meters .
Negative effects:
Lake Nasser flooded many Nubian villages in Egypt , and most of them in northern Sudan , which led to the deportation of its people , in the so-called Nubian migration .
Depriving the Nile Valley from the flood silt nutritious soil .
Increased erosion around the bases of river installations .
Erosion of the delta beaches
Some estimates indicate that the amount of evaporation in the waters of Lake Nasser behind the High Dam is very large , considering that it exposes a large area of water of the sun in a very hot climate , and the size of the loss is similar to Iraq’s share of the Euphrates .
In addition to the spread of some plants and their adaptation to new conditions and their contribution to the transpiration process , and thus water loss .
Some believe that the High Dam represents a military threat to Egypt , as it is difficult to imagine the consequences of the Dam’s bombing , and the size of the flood that will afflict the Egyptian cities located on the river’s path that will be in front of a dangerous flood , and the Egyptian armed forces have taken the necessary measures to prevent this form happening .
Electricity Station
The power plant is located at the exits of the tunnels , where each tunnel branches into two branches installed on each of them a turbine to generate electricity: the number of turbines 12 turbines , the capacity of the turbine is 175 megawatts , the total capacity of the station is 2,100 megawatts of electrical energy produced 10 billion kilowatt hours annually .
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