The geography of Egypt relates to two regions: North Africa and West Asia.
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the longest river in the world, though this has been contested by research suggesting that the Amazon River is slightly longer. Of the world's major rivers, the Nile is one of the smallest, as measured by annual flow in cubic metres of water. About 6,650 km (4,130 mi) long, its drainage basin covers eleven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan, and Egypt. In particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan. The Nile is an important economic driver supporting agriculture and fishing.
Irrigation is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been developed by many cultures around the world. Irrigation helps to grow crops, maintain landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soils in dry areas and during times of below-average rainfall. In addition to these uses, irrigation is also employed to protect crops from frost, suppress weed growth in grain fields, and prevent soil consolidation. It is also used to cool livestock, reduce dust, dispose of sewage, and support mining operations. Drainage, which involves the removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given location, is often studied in conjunction with irrigation.
Hapi was the god of the annual flooding of the Nile in ancient Egyptian religion. The flood deposited rich silt on the river's banks, allowing the Egyptians to grow crops. Hapi was greatly celebrated among the Egyptians. Some of the titles of Hapi were "Lord of the Fish and Birds of the Marshes" and "Lord of the River Bringing Vegetation". Hapi is typically depicted as an androgynous figure with a prominent belly and large drooping breasts, wearing a loincloth and ceremonial false beard, depicted in hieroglyphics as an intersex person.
The Aswan Dam, or Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. When it was completed, it was the tallest earthen dam in the world, surpassing the Chatuge Dam in the United States. The dam, which created the Lake Nasser reservoir, was built 7 km (4.3 mi) upstream of the Aswan Low Dam, which had been completed in 1902 and was already at its maximum utilization. Construction of the High Dam became a key objective of the military regime that took power following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution. With its ability to better control flooding, provide increased water storage for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity, the dam was seen as pivotal to Egypt's planned industrialization. Like the earlier implementation, the High Dam has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt.
Lake Nasser is a vast reservoir in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. It was created by the construction of the Aswan High Dam and is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. Before its creation, the project faced opposition from Sudan as it would encroach on land in the northern part of the country, where many Nubian people lived who would have to be resettled. In the end Sudan's land near the area of Lake Nasser was mostly flooded by the lake. The lake has become an important economic resource in Egypt, improving agriculture and touting robust fishing and tourism industries.
A nilometer is a structure for measuring the Nile River's clarity and water level during the annual flood season in Egypt. There were three main types of nilometers, calibrated in Egyptian cubits: (1) a vertical column, (2) a corridor stairway of steps leading down to the Nile, and (3) a deep well with a culvert. If the water level was low, the fertility of the floodplain would suffer. If it was too high, the flooding would be destructive. There was a specific mark that indicated how high the flood should be if the fields were to get good soil.
The Gezira Scheme is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. It is centered on the Sudanese state of Gezira, just southeast of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers at the city of Khartoum. The Gezira Scheme was begun by the British while the area was governed as part of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Water from the Blue Nile is distributed through canals and ditches to tenant farms lying between the Blue and White Nile.
Sir William Willcocks was a British civil engineer during the high point of the British Empire. He was an irrigation engineer who proposed and built the first Aswan Dam, the scale of which had never been attempted previously. He later undertook other major irrigation projects in South Africa and in Arab regions of the dying Ottoman Empire.
As a body of water that crosses numerous international political borders, the Nile river is subject to multiple political interactions. Traditionally it is seen as the world's longest river flowing 6,700 kilometres (4,200 mi) through ten countries in northeastern Africa – Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt with varying climates.
Sir Murdoch MacDonald was a notable civil engineer and British politician. Born in Inverness, Scotland, MacDonald was educated at the Farraline Park Institution there, and would serve later as the constituency's MP from 1922 until 1950.
The Egyptian Department of Public Works was established in the early 19th century, and concentrates mainly on public works relating to irrigation and hydraulic engineering. These irrigation projects have constituted the bulk of work performed by this entity in Egypt. During its almost 200-year history, the Egyptian Department of Public Works employed many notable engineers and constructed massive public works projects throughout the country. It became the most respected engineering entity and was regarded as the 'best school' for civil engineers in modern Egypt. Its history can be broken into three periods:
- The Classic Period (1818–1882).
- The Occupation Period (1882–1952).
- The Modern Period.
The Assiut Barrage is a dam on the Nile River in the city of Assiut in Upper Egypt. It was completed in 1903.
Water resources management in modern Egypt is a complex process that involves multiple stakeholders who use water for irrigation, municipal and industrial water supply, hydropower generation and navigation. In addition, the waters of the Nile support aquatic ecosystems that are threatened by abstraction and pollution. Egypt also has substantial fossil groundwater resources in the Western Desert.
Egypt's environmental problems include, but are not limited to, water scarcity, air pollution, damage to historic monuments, animal welfare issues and deficiencies in its waste management system.
The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam is a gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. The dam was built by the British at the former first cataract of the Nile, and is located about 1000 km up-river and 690 km south-southeast of Cairo. When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had ever been attempted; on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. The dam was designed to provide storage of annual floodwater and augment dry season flows to support greater irrigation development and population growth in the lower Nile. The dam, originally limited in height by conservation concerns, worked as designed, but provided inadequate storage capacity for planned development and was raised twice: between 1907 and 1912 and again between 1929 and 1933. These heightenings still did not meet irrigation demands and in 1946 it was nearly over-topped in an effort to maximize pool elevation. This led to the investigation and construction of the Aswan High Dam 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) upstream.
The civilization of ancient Egypt was indebted to the Nile River and its dependable seasonal flooding. The river's predictability and fertile soil allowed the Egyptians to build an empire on the basis of great agricultural wealth. Egyptians are credited as being one of the first groups of people to practice agriculture on a large scale. This was possible because of the ingenuity of the Egyptians as they developed basin irrigation. Their farming practices allowed them to grow staple food crops, especially grains such as wheat and barley, and industrial crops, such as flax and papyrus.
Sir M MacDonald & Partners was a UK-based civil engineering consultancy during the 20th century, named after Sir Murdoch MacDonald, a Scottish-born civil engineer. Its establishment and early history was strongly associated with work in Egypt during the 1920s. In 1989, the company merged with Mott, Hay and Anderson to form Mott MacDonald, today a major international multidisciplinary consultancy.
Sudan had a modern irrigated agriculture sector totaling about 800,000 hectares in 2010, out of about 84 million hectares that were potentially arable. This was a slight decline from the prior year and well below the more than 2 million hectares of the early 1990s. The Nile and its tributaries were the source of water for 93 percent of irrigated agriculture, and of this, the Blue Nile accounted for about 67 percent. Gravity flow was the main form of irrigation, although pumps served part of the irrigated area.
Oswald Longstaff Prowde was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with irrigation projects, dams and other water-related projects.
