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Revisited The Benefits of a Much-Maligned Dam , said the eminent Greek historian nance the dam. A week after this official Herodotus, is “the gift of the .” This is letter was received, Nasser declared in a not an overstatement since without the speech in Alexandria to commemorate the Nile, the country as we know it, simply departure of King Farouk from Egypt that would not exist. The importance of the Nile the High Dam would be built by Egypt and Asit K. Biswas to the survival of the country was reiterat- paid for out of the revenues of the Suez ed by Napoleon during the French occu- Canal. He went on to say: “We have tak- pation of Egypt. He said: “If I were to rule The Aswan High Dam across the en this decision to restore part of the glo- a country like Egypt, not a single drop of mighty river Nile is perhaps one of ries of the past, and to safeguard our na- water be allowed to flow into the Mediter- the most controversial of the tional dignity and pride” ranean.” existing big in the world. As Mohammed Heikal, a confident of Throughout history, the have President Nasser, said later: “After the harnessed the water of the Nile. They built Political, economic and West had fumbled and failed it was the So- a very successful civilisation on the banks environmental arguments have viets who had stepped into the breach, of the Nile. Even now, after harnessing the been raised against it ever since and with their money and their skills had full flow of the Nile, only about 4 per cent its construction in the early 1960s. built the ‘new pyramid’…” of the land area of the country, mainly But Asit K. Biswas, after a careful When the construction of the Aswan stretched as narrow strips on both sides High Dam was completed, the General evaluation of the dam’s impact on of the Nile, are arable: the rest of the coun- Secretary of the Central Committee of the try is basically a desert. Egypt, concludes that it has been Communist Party of the , Ni- Of all the dams in the world, the Aswan overwhelmingly beneficial to the kita Khruschev, sent an informal message High Dam is unquestionably most well- country. to President Nasser requesting that he be known. It is also the most vilified dam in officially invited to participate in the open- the world. An important question that has ing ceremony of the Dam. This invitation never been asked is why this dam is so was extended to him and this became the well-known globally, when there are many first visit of the General Secretary to any other dams, which are much larger and/or Arab or African country. During the open- more spectacular. Engineering-wise, it is ing ceremony, Khruschev declared that a somewhat average dam. It is not as awe- the Soviet Union would “drown capital- insprising as the Ataturk Dam in Turkey, or ism” in the African continent, and the So- not as spectacular as many other much viet assistance to construct the Dam was smaller dams like the Yagisawa Dam in Ja- the beginning of this process. pan. Yet, very few people outside Japan The superpower politics over the con- have ever heard of Yagisawa Dam. Even struction of the Aswan Dam generated in Japan, the Aswan Dam is better known considerable media and public interest in than the Yagisawa Dam. The logical ques- the West, as well as in other parts of the tion then to ask is why this anomaly ex- world. This contributed to the global ists? This is a question that has never been awareness of this dam. asked, let alone answered. Soon after the dam was constructed, several American journalists published a Politics of the Aswan Dam series of articles condemning it because To understand this anomaly, it is nec- of its adverse social, environmental and essary to analyse the hydropolitics that economic impacts. Since the construction engulfed the construction of this dam. On of this dam was completed before any the basis of the research carried out at the country in the world required environmen- Third World Centre for Water Management tal impact assessment (EIAs), or metho-

in Mexico, it is now becoming evident that Photo: GMP dologies were even available for carrying much of this can be explained by the From time immemorial, the Nile has been out EIAs, not surprisingly no environmen- superpower rivalries between the United Egypt’s lifeline. tal impact studies were conducted. Ac- States and the Soviet Union. The Aswan cordingly, all these published opinions Dam became a victim of the be- vide the necessary funding for the con- were of course at best only conjectures, cause of the hydropolitics that were asso- struction of the dam. However, for a varie- since the real impacts, both positive and ciated with it. Irrespective of its overall ty of reasons, the USA was displeased negative, were unknown as there was no benefits and costs, this superpower rival- with President Nasser, and on July 19, systematic analysis or monitoring of such ry of the past was instrumental to make 1956, a letter announcing the withdrawal impacts. It is now well known that the in- the dam famous and also in giving it a bad of the American offer to finance the dam telligence agencies of both the two super- name, which has prevailed to date. was handed to the Egyptian Ambassador powers at that time routinely used some The facts are as follows. The United in Washington. This was not unexpected, journalists and academics to plant stories States had initially agreed with the Egyp- since by this time Nasser was convinced that were detrimental to the other side. To tian President to pro- that the Americans would decline to fi- what extent dirty tricks were used to den-

D+C 6/02 25 igrate the reputation of the Aswan benefits and reduce the negative Dam because it was constructed with ones so that the net benefit to the Soviet help, and also because it was Egyptian people could have been the first major Soviet-assisted struc- even higher.” ture in Africa, will probably never be Economic benefits known definitively. However, to a very significant extent, the current bad im- The dams economic benefits age of the Aswan dam in the West have never been in doubt. At the and the rest of the world could be time of its construction, total cost, traced to these early journalistic writ- including subsidiary projects and ings which were accepted at face the extension of electric power value by people outside Egypt, even lines, amounted to Egyptian £450 though most were misleading at million. This is estimated to have best, and incorrect at worst. been recovered within only two In retrospect, the high-profile years, since its annual return to the media articles which focused exclu- national income was estimated at sively on the so-called negative en- E£255 million: E£140 million from vironmental impacts of the Aswan agricultural production, E£100 mil- High Dam found a receptive audi- lion from hydropower generation, ence in the West, many of whom E£10 million from protection, were already convinced at that time and E£5 million from improved that such large development pro- navigation. Viewed from any an- jects could only be environmental gle, these are remarkable eco- disasters. Very few, if any, people nomic returns from any develop- realised that the articles were ment project. based on suppositions rather than The importance of the dam to facts, and it was highly likely that Egypt’s economic survival was many such stories were ‘planted’ clearly demonstrated in the by the intelligence agencies. Not 1980s. It is not difficult to see surprisingly, most of these stories what would have happened to the were later found to be incorrect. Egyptian economy and its social- These writings in the US me- political conditions if the Dam dia simply reinforced the prevail- had not been there to protect the ing biases such as ‘small is country from first, the potentially beautiful’, and ensured that the catastrophic impact of nine Dam became a cause célebre years of continued from among the newly emerging envi- 1979 to 1988; and second the ronmental movement as a prom- abnormally high summer flood inent example of a bad, large de- of 1988 (which had devastating velopment project. Irrespective impacts on another of detailed studies later, which country, Sudan). Even with the refuted most of the earlier short- Dam, Egypt had come perilous- comings of the structure, the ly close to feeling the catas- legend of the Aswan High Dam trophic impacts of the drought has continued to live until the in 1988, due to a dangerously present day. The detailed stud- low water level in the High Dam ies that were carried out in the Lake. There can be no doubt 1980s and early 1990s on the that if the drought had contin- actual impacts of the dam with ued for another few years, even the support of the Canadian International successful dam, without which Egypt the Aswan High Dam would not have been Development Agency (CIDA) are only would have been in dire economic straits. able to protect Egypt from its ravages. known to the very few people who were It has unquestionably contributed to some Impact on downstream areas directly associated with this project. The adverse environmental impacts as well as CIDA-assisted studies indicated that con- to many positive ones. Not surprisingly, Clearly, construction of the Dam has trary to the popular belief that the Aswan the Executive Director of the United Na- changed the hydraulic regime of the river Dam was a ‘complete disaster’, it was ac- tions Environment Programme, Dr. Mos- downstream. In effect, it has become a tually one of the best dams in the world tafa Kamal Tolba, concluded in 1988: “- “glorified canal”, since its water flows to- because of the very substantial overall The real question can no longer be wheth- tally controlled by a series of dams and benefits it brought to the country and its er the Aswan Dam should have been ev- barrages. Canalisation of the river has re- people. er built, since without it the Egyptians duced its length. Similarly, the number of The myths surrounding the Aswan High would have been facing a continuing ec- islands in the river has declined from 150 Dam have been repeated so many times onomic and social catastrophe over the before the Dam to 36 at present. that these are now accepted as facts, es- past three decades, but rather what steps A major environmental concern was the pecially outside Egypt. In reality, evidence should have been taken to maximise fur- potential drop in river-bed level down- indicates that Aswan has been remarkably ther the positive socio-environmental stream of the Dam as the result of serious

26 D+C 6/02 erosion caused by the flow of -free wa- water level of areas. Absence of will continue to fall, dropping below 5 per ter (silt is now deposited behind the dam) proper in the past contributed to cent, at which point the disease will no Estimates by various national and interna- the development of salinity and waterlog- longer be considered endemic for the first tional experts put this drop at between 3 ging, which reduced land productivity. time in centuries. and 8.5 metres. The actual drop has now Egypt then embarked on an ambitious Balanced assessment been measured at less than 15 per cent of programme of providing drainage in 2 mil- the lowest estimate. lion ha, where productivity has increased An objective evaluation of the impacts Prior to the construction of the Dam, silt by 15-30 per cent depending on con- of the Aswan High Dam based on over 30 used to be spread over land or carried to ditions. years of operational data clearly indicates the Mediterranean delta. It is estimated Following the construction of the Dam, that it has been overwhelming positive. Al- that each year used to deposit 12 the fish catch in the Mediterranean de- though the Dam has contributed to some million tonnes of silt on land along the Nile. clined from 22,618 tonnes in 1968 to environmental problems, these have The reduction in soil fertility due to the loss 10,300 tones in 1972. By 1980, it had re- proved to be significantly less severe than of the nitrogenous component of the silt covered to 13,450 tonnes. However, what was generally expected, or currently be- now has to be compensated for by the an- is not generally recognised is that the High lieved by many people. In retrospect, the nual addition of some 13,000 tonnes of Dam Lake created a completely new Aswan High Dam deserves much more lime-nitrate fertiliser. source of fish, and, by 1982, was produc- credit than it has received thus far for its The Egyptians had been taming the ing 32,000 tonnes annually, more than significant beneficial contributions to River Nile long before the construction of compensating for the loss in the Mediter- Egypt’s overall social and economic de- the Aswan High Dam, and coastal erosion ranean catch. velopment. in the was first observed in 1898, The Aswan High Dam has been widely when the first manmade structures start- blamed for an increase in schistosomia- The Third World Centre for Water management is now conducting a major study on the actual eco- ed to control the river’s flow. This erosion sis. It is now clear that in most cases schis- nomic, social, and environmental impacts of the As- accelerated after the construction of the tosomiasis infection occurred not during wan High Dam Ataturk Dam in Turkey and Bhakra- Dam. Appropriate measures have been irrigation, but during human contact with Nangal Dam in India, with the support of the Nippon Foundation of Japan. The present report is based on taken, or are being implemented, to miti- canal water due to the absence of water- the initial finding of this assessment project. gate the effect of the coastal erosion. supply and sanitation facilities. Provision of basic services like clean water, sanita- Waterlogging and disease Prof. Asit K. Biswas is the President of the Third tion, health education and rural clinics has World Centre for Water Management in Mexico. For- Over-irrigation and other inefficient us- reduced the overall prevalences of schis- mer President of International Water Resources As- sociation, he was a Member of the World Commis- es of water, bad land levelling and the in- tosomiasis from more than 40 per cent sion on Water, and Senior Advisor to the Executive tensification of cropping patterns have during the pre-dam period to only 10.7 per Director of UNEP for 19 years. His work has now contributed to an increase in the ground- cent in 1991. It is expected that this figure been translated into 31 languages.

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