Optimizing water resources in Egypt: The case for sediment deduction at the High Aswan dam reservoir

Description

Scientists in Egypt are particularly interested in the sustainablemanagement of water and land resources. Global warming and the highertemperatures will lead to higher evaporation rates, which, in turn,will result in lessWater Resources and Irrigation predicts that the evaporation losses will, comparedto the mean annual evaporation rates for the last 30years, be approximately3% to10% higher by the year2100. Since the construction of the High Aswan Dam fiftyyears ago, high sediment loads have been a tremendous problem. 6.6 Billion CubicMeter (BCM) of sediments were deposited in the HADR during this period. Thesesedimentshave raised lakebed levels as well as led to higher water levels and alarger surface area, and these developments, in turn, have decreased the storagecapacity of the HADR and increased the evaporation rate. This paper investigatedthe impact of loweringthe lakebed by removing sediments from the HADR with adistinct emphasis on evaporation losses. An up-to-date digital elevation model forthe HADR, developed by Elba, was used to describe the hydrological characteristicsof the HADR, and it was modified toassess the consequences of removing sedimentdeposits. The study showed that removing these deposits from the HADR willreduce evaporation losses by about 1.1 BCM by 2100, which represents 6.5% of thetotal projected evaporation losses.

Period	16.03.2016
Event title	International Conference for Development and Environment in the Arab world
Event type	Conference
Conference number	8
Location	Assiut, EgyptShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International