Water Management Models in Practice: A Case Study of the Aswan High Dam [antikvár]

Preface In the preface of his study, The Khedive's Egypt, Edwin DeLeon wrote: What can anybody have to tell us about the Nile-land that has not already been said or sung ad nauseam? Painfully conscious of the fact that the collected bulk of all the writings on Egypt, if laid one above the other, would rival the height and magnitude of one of the smaller Pyramids, the present writer pleads an apology . . . This was in 1878, and although we have no apologies to make, perhaps we have reached the point in both water resources systems analysis and the Aswan High Dam controversy at which any study dealing with reservoir operation policy or the High Dam—much less both—should begin with a statement about what it is not. First, this is not a cost-benefit analysis of the Aswan High Dam project, nor is it an economic or environmental impact assessment. Surprisingly, such studies remain to be done despite the voluminous literature and commentary on the High Dam."" This is, however, best left to historians of the respective disciplines because the Aswan High Dam has been completed and operating for more than a decade. Second, this is not a report on reservoir operation theory. Here too, the literature has exploded in the past twenty years, and no attempt is made to systematically review or evaluate it. The subject of this study is the development and evaluation of operating policies for the Aswan High Dam and their relation to the development of water resources policy in Egypt. The Aswan High Dam has been the object of extraordinary controversy since its conception.'"'"Critics feared that it would entail ecological catastrophe; proponents argued that it was the only vehicle to economic development for Egypt. In the politically charged atmosphere surrounding the debates concerning the various costs and benefits of the High Dam, the question of how the High Dam should be operated was oddly neglected by many of the people involved. This situation arose in part, as John Waterbury (1979) has noted, because technical debate and '' For examples of some initial attempts in this area, see ShibI, 1971; Abdel-Fadil, 1974; Walid, 1971; Rabie, 1970; Kandeel, 1966; Berg, 1976. '^"¦por a sampling of the more recent literature on the Aswan controversy, see Washington Post, i/20/71; Sterling, 1971, a & h; Geyer, 1971; Ghabbour, 1973; Van de Schalie, 1974; Elkington, 1975; U.S. News & World Report, 9/6/76; Vicker, 1976; Critch-field, 1976; Rzoska, 1976; Development Fonini, Dec. 1976; Gautani, 197^^.