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A major environmental concern was the potential drop in river-bed level downstream of the Dam as the result of serious erosion caused by the flow of silt-free water (silt is now deposited behind the dam) Estimates by various national and international experts put this drop at between 3 and 8.5 metres. The actual drop has now been measured at less than 15 per cent of the lowest estimate. |
| Prior to the construction of the Dam, silt used to be spread over land or carried to the Mediterranean delta. It is estimated that each year floods used to deposit 12 million tonnes of silt on land along the Nile. The reduction in soil fertility due to the loss of the nitrogenous component of the silt now has to be compensated for by the annual addition of some 13,000 tonnes of lime-nitrate fertiliser. |
The Aswan Low Dam |
| The Egyptians had been taming the River Nile long before the construction of the Aswan High Dam, and coastal erosion in the Nile Delta was first observed in 1898, when the first manmade structures started to control the river's flow. This erosion accelerated after the construction of the Dam. (http://www.dse.de/zeitschr/de602-11.htm, 2004) |
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