Word: aswan
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Many experts believe the ground-water problems have been exacerbated by the Aswan High Dam. Completed in 1970, it stopped the annual flooding of the Nile and made much more land available for agriculture. But the extensive irrigation used to make that land arable, along with poor drainage, has helped cause the rise in the water table's average level...
...desert, Egyptians depend on the world's longest river for irrigation, electric power, drinking water and transportation. Now, after a decade of drought that has left parts of central Africa on the brink of starvation, the Nile is running perilously low. For the first time since the Aswan High Dam was finished in 1970, serious shortages of water and hydroelectric power threaten Egypt...
...midsummer, government officials predict, the water level in the reservoir above Aswan, known as Lake Nasser, will drop to 492 ft., from 574 ft. a decade ago, slashing power output by 55% and causing isolated power shortages. If the level dips much below that, Aswan's powerful turbines, which provide 25% of Egypt's electricity, must be shut down, crippling industrial development and hampering efforts to reclaim desert land for cultivation...
...decided to save water by adding an extra week to the dam's annual 21-day maintenance period, when water flow is sharply reduced. The results downstream were dramatic: parts of the Nile's muddy bottom in Cairo were exposed for the first time, and tourist boats cruising between Aswan and Luxor suddenly confronted midstream sandbars, making passage impossible...
...recent months the Egyptian government has quietly begun instituting measures to save water. Since October, outflow from the Aswan dam has been reduced by more than 10%; irrigation water that once flooded more than 250,000 acres of rice fields, or 25% of Egypt's total production, has been cut off. To cope with the anticipated decrease in hydroelectricity, the government plans to add four new gas- and oil-fired electric generating plants to Egypt's overtaxed power system in the next year. Cost: $300 million...