Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation

The High Dam is considered the greatest engineering project in the Twentieth century from an architectural and engineering perspective, surpassing other gigantic international projects. The dam was established to protect Egypt from high flooding that used to overflow the country and drown vast areas or get wasted in the Mediterranean Sea.

The High Dam Necessity

Realizing the importance of the River Nile since antiquity, Egyptians held annual storage projects, like Aswan Dam and Jabal Al-Awliyaa Reservoir, to control the changing runoff. Barrages were also established on the Nile to regulate irrigation on the Nile various reaches. However, annual storage was only a partial solution to control and dominate the Nile. The River yield differs widely every year; it may reach 151 billion cubic meters or drop down to 42 billion cubic meters per year. Such considerable disparity makes dependence on annual storage extremely hazardous because it may turn arable land to fallow land in the low-yield years. Hence, the idea of building a huge dam on the Nile to store water in years of high runoff to for use in low-yield years started to roam in the horizon. Hence, establishment of the High Dam came as the first continuous storage project across the Nile basin countries that could be implemented within the Egyptian borders.

Project Execution Milestones

Adrian Daninus, an Egyptian engineer of a Greek origin, presented a project to the 1952 Revolution Command Council for building a huge dam at Aswan with the purpose of holding the Nile flooding, storing its water and generating electrical power.
On 18 October 1952, studies were conducted by the Ministry of Public Works (currently the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation) and the military engineers’ corps in collaboration with a selected group of university professors, based on a resolution by 1952 Revolution Command Council. It was resolved that the project was capable of providing Egypt with its water requirements.
In the early 1954, two German engineering companies submitted their design for the project which was revised and approved by an international committee in December 1954. Specifications and conditions of the project execution were also laid out.
Egypt applied for the World Bank to finance the project. After extensive studies of the project, the World Bank adopted the project’s technical and economic feasibility.
In December 1955, the World Bank presented its offer of a fund amounting to a quarter of the costs of constructing the dam.
On 19/7/1956, the World Bank withdrew its offer yielding to the imperialistic pressures.
On 27/12/1958, an agreement was signed between Russia (formerly, the Soviet Union) and Egypt to lend Egypt 400 million Rubles for the execution of the Dam’ first phase.
In May 1959, the soviet experts revised the dam’s designs and proposed some slight transformations, the most important of which were changing location of power station and using a special technology in washing and combining the sands when used in building the body of the dam.
In December 1959, an agreement for distributing the reservoir’s water was signed between Egypt and Sudan.
execution of phase one commenced on 9 January 1960; it included digging and lining the diversion canal and the tunnels with reinforced concrete and laying the foundations of the electricity station an building the dam till a level of 130 me.
On 27 August, 1960, another agreement was signed with Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) to lend Egypt additional 500 million rubles to fund the dam’s second phase.
In the middle of May 1964, the Nile water was diverted to the Diversion canal and the tunnels, the Nile course was closed and storing water in the lake was initiated.
The second phase witness continuation of building the body of the dam, completion of building the electricity station, installing and operating the turbines, setting the converters stations and electricity grids.
In October 1967, the first was the High Dam Electricity Station
Complete water storage downstream the High Dam has started since 1968
In the middle of July 1970, the project was complete
On 15 January 1971, opening of the High Dam was celebrated.

The Project’s General Description:

The High Dam is a rockfill dam that is of 3830 m length, 520m of which are stretched between the Nile’s banks. The rest is stretched in the form of two wings at the river’s sides.The dam is 111 m high above the Nile’s bottom level; its top width is 40 m.

The Electricity Station lies at the Nile’s eastern bank intercepting the course of the conversion canal from which water flows into turbines through six tunnels fitted with control gates as well as weeds’ barriers. The station produces 10 billion kilowatts per hour annually.

Electricity Station

Water kept upstream the dam forms an enormous artificial lake with a length of 500 km and an average width of 12 km covering the whole Egyptian Nubia in addition to a part of the Sudanese Nubia.

Satellite Image for Naser Lake

The High Dam was designed so that the highest water level held upstream reaches 183 m; its storage capacity at that level is 169 billion m³ that can be distributed as follows:
31.6 billion m³is the dead storage capacity that is allotted for silting
89.7 billion m³is the storage capacity that ensures an average annual discharge of 84 billion m³ shared between Egypt and Sudan (55.5 billion m³ for Egypt and 28.5 billion m³ for Sudan)
47.7 billion m³ is the storage capacity specified for
prevention of floods.

A spillway was established to drain the lake’s water in the event that its water level exceeded the maximal storage level which is 182 m. This spillway is situated at a 2 kilometers distance west of the dam in an area marked with the existence of a natural depression sloping in the direction of the Nile stream where it allows the passing of 200 million m³ on a daily basis.

Toshka spillway was established at the end of 1981 with the purpose of protecting the country from the dangers of high flooding; the corrosion of the river course and destruction of the established water facilities that may result from releasing huge water discharges into the Nile. Water is drained, if its level exceeded 178 m upstream the High Dam, through Toshka Spillway into a depression that lies in the western desert 250 kilometers south of the High Dam; i.e. Toshka Depression. Water has entered Toshka Spillway for the first time on 15 November 1996 where water level upstream the Dam reached 178.55 m.

Project Cost:

The total costs of the High Dam Project amounted to nearly 450 million pounds; costs of constructing Toshka Spillway reached 42 million pounds.

The Role of the High Dam in Protecting Egypt

The High Dam has protected Egypt from drought and famine that might have resulted out of low-yield consecutive runoffs within the period from 1979 to 1987; for nearly 70 billion cubic meters of water reserve in the High Dam Lake to compensate the annual shortage in the river’s average yield.
The High Dam has also protected Egypt from the hazards of high flooding that occurred in the period of 1998 to 2002. But for the High Dam, land and people would have perished; the state would have been burdened with immense expenditure in combating these floods and eliminating its devastating effects.

The Role of the High Dam in Agricultural and Industrial
Development:

Land reclamation and increasing the arable area
Converting basin irrigation to perennial irrigation and increasing agricultural productivity
Expansion in rice cultivation
Generating electrical power to be used in operation of factories, villages and cities.
Ensuring full operation of Aswan Reservoir’s Station by providing a fixed water level around the year
Increasing fish resources using the High Dam’s Lake
Improving river navigation throughout the year.