Nile River

10,000 BCE - 2017 CE

“In many cases, domestic wastewater is collected from the center of the towns and from the villages and dumping it into a nearby irrigation canal is quite common.”

“Although coastal erosion along the Egyptian Mediterranean Sea is a process that has been going on since ancient times, there is no question that Aswan High Dam exacerbated the process...Efforts to slow erosion have been largely unsuccessful.”

African species not previously resident in Egypt are wintering in Lake Nasser. Among them are the pink-backed pelican, yellow-billed stork, African skimmer, three-banded plover, and Namaqua dove. Other birds, such as the white-throated kingfisher, the blackbird, and the previously rare black bush robin, are expanding their range and becoming more common.

“The crocodile population in Lake Nasser has dropped dramatically due to illegal overfishing. Studies show their numbers have dropped by half in the past few years.”

“The construction of the High Dam at Aswan and greater extraction of water for irrigation have starved Lake Qarun [in the Fayoum] of its lifeblood. Without a steady influx of fresh water, evaporation from the lake surface has turned its water increasingly saline—to the point where it is no longer good for irrigating the fields, nor even for sustaining much in the way of fish stocks...Lake Qarun is slowly dying.”

“The discharge of large quantities of wastewater without treatment affects the use of river water for both drinking and irrigation purposes, and has a damaging effect on aquatic life.”

“Sardines formerly breeding in the Nile estuary have almost disappeared andmarine fish that used to seasonally migrate into the delta lakes have been virtuallyeliminated. Their place has, however, been taken by freshwater fish.”

“We estimated a surface population abundance of 2,581 crocodiles in Lake Nasser.”

“The wetlands bordering the shores of [Lake Nasser] have provided habitats for rich fauna—particularly birds, insects, and reptiles.”

“The shores [of Lake Nasser] and its floodplain have provided new opportunities for reptiles to inhabit these areas [including] the Nile crocodile, which was once common throughout the Nile valley but at present only successfully inhabits the lake shores; however, its population is continuously increasing. Other reptiles recorded on the lake shores are the Nile monitor and the Nile soft-shelled turtle.”

“The creation of Lake Nasser offered new ecological niches for birds, particularly for the locally breeding population of the Egyptian goose. On the other hand, the fulvous babbler disappeared from the Nile valley after its breeding grounds were permanently flooded by the lake. One winter visitor of the lake, the ferruginous duck, is on the list of Globally Threatened Bird Species. Large numbers of white pelican winter on the lake; this is also an endangered species...The African skimmer and African pied wagtail breed on the lake’s wetland but not in other areas in Egypt.”

“With the construction of the Aswan High Dam, silt deposits on the Nile floodplains have decreased from 24 million tons per year to 2.1 million tons per year. This decrease has been responsible for a significant increase in the use of chemical fertilizers.”

“Lake Manzala serves as a final repository for much of the municipal and agricultural wastewater of the eastern Delta, including the wastewater of most of Cairo... High levels of DDT, pesticides, and PCBs have been found in the water of the lake as well as in fish caught from the lake.”