The Aswan Dam

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The Aswan Dam In 1960 the Aswan Dam began construction; it was an impressive display of what can be accomplished when nations work together. The Dam was a huge undertaking, costing millions of dollars, close to 16,000 million dollars (U.S.). The man behind the idea for the Dam was Gamal Abdul Nasser, leader of Egypt. He began the project because he wanted to control the flooding of the Nile River, and provide more water for irrigation. This would, in turn, provide more land for farmers and help to eradicate their poverty issues. The Dam itself was built between Asyut and Abu Simbel, more towards the southern part of Egypt. While the Dam was intended to do nothing but benefit Egypt and its economy, it didn’t come without implications and negative effects. To build the Dam, many houses and residences had to be relocated and many people had to leave their homes. There were also old Egyptian structures that had to be carefully moved to avoid destruction from the new path of the river. These relocations sparked controversy and resistance from the Egyptian people due to the old structures being a large part of the tourist attraction in Egypt. Another big problem the Dam caused was with the soil around the river. Normally the soil was very good for farming, even with the annual floods, but the construction of the Dam caused the nutrients in the water to stop flowing to the soil. The result was poor farmland and in turn, the poverty of the farmers wasn’t completely solved. But the Dam didn’t bring just negatives to play; it also had significant positive effects. For one, the government hoped to reclaim a large amount of land, and the Dam itself would serve as an electricity producer, converting water to energy. Preventing the damage from the floods was a main issue that the Dam was to solve, and increasing agricultural production due to a change in
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