The intentions for the construction of the Aswan dam were solely to harness the power of the Nile River for the benefit of the Egyptian people. Although the benefits from such a project are obvious and extremely important it is critical that potential future ramifications be addressed so that the short-term gain of the dam is not lost among the long-term devastation it can cause.
Benefits
The resulting dam puts out approximately 10,000 million kilowatt hours per year. This
allows for every city, town and village within Egypt to receive electrical power. Taking
advantage of this new power supply, steel and chemical fertilizer plants were built around
the dam which industrialized the area. More importantly, was the creation of a large
storage of water that allowed for adequate land irrigation to an additional two million
acres within Egypt and another five million acres within The Sudan. The increased
agricultural economy increases crop production, and creates additional jobs within Egypt
improving country welfare.
Detriments
With each successive barrage and with the eventual construction of the Aswan Dams, over 120,000 people were forced to leave their homelands. The Nubian people had to be relocated to newly irrigated land or within the Egyptian cities. The cost of this relocation within The Sudan was over $42 million.
Along with the people displaced by the flood, historical sights and relics were also
affected. Temples, ancient tombs, beautiful artifacts and other archaeological sights had
to be moved or quickly recovered. One such sight, Abu Simbel took over $40 
million and 4 years to save while many others were
lost beneath the waters and the increasing layers of silt.
An immediate affect of the newly constructed dam was the elimination of the seasonal floods. Although they were initially a major reason for dam construction, it is here that the Egyptian people will potentially pay the highest price for their technological advancement.
The seasonal floods provided many benefits to the surrounding countryside, with the rushing flow of the floodwaters depositing nutrient enriched silt for fertilizer and cleansing the salinity from the fields. With the Aswan trapping 98% of the silt that travels down the Nile from Ethiopia the delta is now receding and coastal farmland is disintegrating because of its absence. Also, salt water is now creeping up from the ocean into the ground water, by virtue of the reduced Nile flow. This along with prevalent irrigation increases the saline level within the soil, which makes the land arid and barren. With Egypt's rapidly expanding population, the worst thing would be for their agricultural production to diminish.
A frightening problem that has developed since the creation of the dam is a severe increase of a 'still-water' disease known as schistosomiasis. Caused by a flatworm that lives within snails along the Nile and its canals, it infects the urinary tract and small intestine. Infection is caused through direct contact with water carrying these microscopic organisms. Prior to the building of the dam, the canals would dry out killing the worms. With the newly created lake the water within the canals does not dry up and the worms are able to survive and as a result, the disease has spread very quickly through the nomadic tribes.
Conclusions
In a country where drought and famine have been avoided strictly through the use of
irrigating the powerful Nile River, it is understandable the desire to harness that power
as a crucial element of future advancement. The dam allowed them to survive their growing
population and utilize the fresh water of the river to irrigate much needed farming lands.
In their rush to achieve this solution they ignored the potential consequences it would
have on their future, and of that of coming generations. The increased levels of saline
within the land and the constant erosion within the delta area are forcing Egypt to deal
with a very familiar problem: The lack of productive, arable land. However, this time, the
dam is the cause instead of the cure, and therefore the Egyptian people must look
elsewhere than to the river for a solution.