The Environmental Effects of Aswan High Dam - Book Report/Review Example

The environmental effects of Aswan High Dam Name Course Tutor Date The famous Aswan High dam is an embankment dam that lies across the River Nile in Egypt; it was constructed between 1960 and 1970. The reason for building this big project was that the Nile River flooded every year during the summer season and this led to many losses and even the loss of life. This paper is all about the Aswan High dam as a case study which the author used to enlighten the reader on the developmental history of Egypt. In his book, “rule of experts” the author has analyzed every aspects of the Egyptians’ life during the colonial and war period. The chapter titled “can mosquitoes speak?” In the book ‘rule of experts’ authored by Mitchell, is meant to check on the development of Egypt from early 20th century. The writer of this chapter argues that the existing scholarships on the development project are bound to fail because that the conceptualized modernity is already flawed. He explains that Egypt’s potential to develop was because of the German attack in 1942. However, human agency like war and colonialism were not the only factors that affected Egypt but we also had nature factors such as the devastating invasion by the malaria carrying mosquitoes (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). The main theme in this chapter of the ‘can mosquito speak? is the integration of human and non-human agency. The author asserts that the presence of human agencies alone is insufficient to explain the development of Egypt. This chapter tells us that Egypt’s developmental potential was much interfered with the Germany invasion. Later on, when Egypt’s free officers came to power in 1952 and started putting up modern projects such as the Aswan high dam, they were much affected by the war and colonialism. These two were the central factors that made Egypt to remain stagnant during this century. In addition to these two factors, Egypt had experience another devastating factor that actually is always ignored in mentioning the development of Egypt (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). A strange mosquito’s type which never existed in Egypt had come all the way from sub-Saharan Africa and had invaded the upper part of Egypt. This mosquito type called anopheles gambiae has a strand of malaria parasite called plasmodium fasciparum (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). While Egyptians were dying of war where almost 70,000 people were killed, the malaria parasite it invaded Egypt and caused over 200,000 deaths. The infection of this parasite really negatively affected Egyptian development in terms of capital and human resources. The author writes about how the capitalist society actions the priority. He examines this idea using the example of the mosquitoes in the country gives the reader the insight of the political, economic and social state of Egypt. By applying this approach, Mitchell discusses all the circumstances, actions and context that converged together in the rural parts of Egypt. Right away from themed 1880s to early 1900s.His analysis is a good mirror which we can use to see how capitalism ruled the day to the exploitation of the society’s health (Mitchell, 2002, pg1).. He does not want to give capitalism the credit for what occurred in the rural Egypt, to him, capitalism did more harm than good to the Egyptian society. He thoroughly examines every aspect of the political, economic and the social aspects when it came to the introduction of technology, governance and the modern Egypt. His evidences are presented clearly particularly when he was giving the history of the map of Egypt and the reasons of the mapping of Egypt (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). From his analysis, he argues that even if war and colonialism dragged Egypt from development, the practice of capitalism was the major factor that pulled Egypt behind in advancing. The few rich suppressed the peasant farmers in the rural Egypt. Thus the little they had was even snatched away from them. He argued that the non-human agents were not the sole factors that hindered Egypt’s development, but pointed out that the interrelation of human and non human factors for a number of decades brought about the conditions for the invasion by the mosquitoes. The SWAN dam that was build across the Nile River actually changed the sediments that reached the upper part of Egypt. This in turn created fertile breeding ground for the mosquitoes (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). Another cause of the mosquitos’ invasion was that because of the presence of the Germany in the Northern parts of Egypt, the British military they changed the course of their ships’ routes in a manner that the mosquitoes were transported to Egypt from Sudan. Mitchell in his book tends to question modernity that is being spear headed by these hungry politicians that it is bound to fail since the concepts are improperly framed. He asserts that modernity needs rethinking on the course and strategic plan in order to attain it. Mitchell’s discussion on economic reforms is that the Egyptian citizens have been made to trust their leaders by accepting sacrifices for the developed future. In this way, the Egyptians have been duped to sell their modernity (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). The environmental effects of Aswan High Dam Besides the economical effects of the Aswan high dam; this project had environmental effects as well. Some of the environmental effects that were brought about by the construction of this prestigious dam are; first, the lower part of the Nile River the floods plains were no longer flooded due to the construction of the dam at the upper stream (White, 1988, pg 36). The plains were always flooded and the deposits of rich silt soil remained on these plains and formed fertile lands. However, after the construction of the dam that controlled the floods, the plains were never flooded again.Thirdly, since the development of the dam, there has been a problem of salinity and water logging due to over irrigation of the land along the river. The extensive sugarcane, rice and other crops farms have made nearly the entire region of the land bordering the river to be saline. This is an environmental problem because some of the useful microorganisms do not survive in saline environment (Ahmed, 1999, pg 1). Biologically microorganisms are very much important contribute much to the soil; fertility, so when they are eliminated due to salinity of the soil, the fertility reduces. The establishment of this project had a negative environmental effect on marine animals such as fish. In the lower part of the Nile, certain species of fish were initially found due to the silt deposits of the floods. The fish fed on this silt and bred in the estuaries of the river Nile. Now when the dam was constructed, these fish vanished since the food that came with the silt deposits was not available (White, 1988, pg 339). This also became a problem to the fishery industry because the fish had migrated to the sea hence few fish were caught. Another environmental concern that was brought about by the Aswan high dam is that there was widespread of weeds especially in the waterways and channels due to the inflow of silt from the main river (El-shinnawy, Abdel-Meguid,Nour &Bakry, 2000, pg 1). The weeds growth is also boosted by the use of farm fertilizers in the farms. Due to wide spread of the waterweeds, the safety and effectiveness of irrigation and drainage networks were endangered. This situation has caused a big amount of water to be wasted due to slow flow in the channels. (Mitchell, 2002, pg1). Generally, the environmental conditions are disturbed. Conclusion The author of the book “the rule of experts” used the title “can mosquito speak?” as a metaphor to describe the economic and political development in Egypt. Actually, he used this title emphasize that the war crisis and political climate in Egypt were not the only ones that shaped the history of Egypt. From his perspective, he points out that the new project such as the Aswan high dam had much influence to the development of Egypt. This brought conducive conditions for the mosquito breeding. Egypt did not have a problem of malaria from the history because of its climatic conditions that do not favor mosquito breeding. However, after the building of the dam, the malaria problem struck and killed thousands of Egyptians in fact being the number one killer of human being in this nation. Bibliographic references Ahmed, Tarek. (1999). Role of the Aswan high dam in promoting the Nile river system management. Accessed on web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from http://web.macam.ac.il/~arnon/Int- ME/water/Nile%20River%20System%20Management.htm Aali, Saad el. (2003). The Aswan high dam case. Accessed on web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from web http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~tzs/Aswan%20High%20Dam%20case.pdf El-shinnawy, Ibrahim. Abdel-Meguid Mohamaed Nour Eldin &Bakry, Mohamed. (2000). Impact of Aswan high dam on the aquatic weed ecosystem. Accessed on web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.virtualacademia.com/pdf/pla534_541.pdf. El-sayed, sayed &Van Dijken, Gert. (1995). The southern Mediterranean ecosystem revisited; Thirty years after the construction of the Aswan high dam. Accessed on web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from http://ocean.tamu.edu/Quarterdeck/QD3.1/Elsayed/elsayed.html Mitchell, T. (2002). Can Mosquitoes speak? University of California. Berkeley. USA. Tvedt, T. (2004). The River Nile in the age of the British: political ecology and the quest for economic power. New York. USA. Umich.edu. Human impacts on river Nile. Accessed o web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from http://sitemaker.umich.edu/sec004_gp5/the_aswan_dam_disadvantages White, G.F. 9(1988). The environmental effects of the high dam at Aswan. Environment, ppg 34- 40. Zeid, Mahmoud Abu.(1989). Environmental impacts of Aswan High Dam. Accessed on web 17th April 2013. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07900628908722428#preview Read More