The Importance Of The Nile River Environmental Sciences Essay

Everyone has certain things they struggle with, and we are always willing to lend an ear to anyone who might help us resolve one of those struggles and find the best solutions for these Struggles. No one can live without water; this is why Nile is like the main artery of Egypt. The Nile is considered the only weapons that protect Egypt from the upcoming water war that will destroy a lot of countries. Egypt would be almost all barren deserts without the Nile. This Paper is an attempt to prove that the Nile is one of the most important things that Egypt can’t live without, by studying how ancient Egyptians used it to make their great history, how Egyptians now are greatly affected by the Nile and that without it Egypt will die.

No one can deny that the Nile was so important to the pharaohs in their daily life. The pharaohs was so smart , they used the Nile so good to help them in their life. The pharaohs used the Nile for agriculture. The pharaoh got all the rich peasants to do the farm work on the rich lands. Most of the ancient villagers were farmers. Farmers lived in towns too with craft workers, traders and other workers and their families. Egyptians grew several crops such as wheat, barley, vegetables, figs, melons, pomegranates and vines. The most important crop at this time was grain. The pharos used grain to make bread, porridge and beer. The Grain was the first crop they grew after flooding season. Once grain was harvested, they grew vegetables such as onions, cabbages, beans, cucumbers and lettuce .Farmers planted fruit, trees along paths, to give shade as well as fruit. The Egyptians grew their crops along the banks of the River Nile on the rich black soil which was considered one of the best soils for agriculture in the world. This rich soil was left behind after the yearly floods. This soil was ideal to grow healthy crops. Egyptian farmers divided their year into three seasons, based on the cycles of the Nile: Akhet which starts in June and ends in September and called also The Flooding Season. Farming was not done at this time, as all the fields were flooded. Instead, many farmers worked for the pharaoh, building pyramids or temples. Some of the time was spent mending their tools and looking for animals. Peret which starts in October and ends in February and called also The Growing Season. In October, the floodwaters receded, leaving behind a layer of black soil. Shemu which starts in March and ends in May and called also The Harvesting Season. The fully grown crops had to be harvested and removed before the Nile is flooded again. It was also the time to repair the canals to be ready for the next flood. Every June in the year, the Nile flooded. This was known “the flooding season”. During this time the farmers mend tools or make new ones. People would go fishing for extra food or money. To lift the water from the Nile they used a shaduf. A shaduf is a large pole balanced on a crossbeam, a rope and bucket on one end and a heavy counter weight at the other end. By pulling the rope it lowered the bucket into the Nile River. The farmers then raised the bucket of water by pulling down on the weight. He then swings the pole around and emptied the bucket onto the field. Nowadays Egyptian are sticking to the Nile from ancient Egyptians to modern Egypt which prove how living beside the Nile is important and living beside the Nile make life easier.

A question that a lot of people don’t know its answer, Why the Nile River Flood? .Rains in Africa, especially rains coming from the Ethiopian Highlands, and melting snow caused the Nile River to flood. The Ancient Egyptians used something called nilometer to record how high the Nile was during the year. In May the Nile River is at the lowest point as it will be all year long. From June to August the Nile River rises rapidly. In the middle of September the river is at the peak. By the time October, the Nile’s water level begins to decrease again. The Ancient Egyptians held a big festival every year for the Nile River because they thought that the Nile River flooded because Isis which was an Egyptian goddess. They also offered a human sacrifice for the Nile River. The flood still continues every year. The annual flood carries dead and decaying plants in its muddy solution. The muddy water is called silt, and silt creates excellent farm soil. Since 1970, the Aswan Dam has controlled the annual flood of the Nile River by holding back water, the Aswan Dam created the world’s largest man-made lake: Lake Nasser. The water from Lake Nasser provided new fishing areas and provides much needed water for agriculture.

Since the Nile was so important in old Egyptian history, so it’s for sure that the Nile importance increased now much more .One of the most important thing that Egypt gets benefit due to the Nile is the High Dam. The high dam is located in Aswan. It was completed in 1970. It cost was one billion dollar; its capacity is 5.97 trillion cubic feet. It was built to control the flood and to obtain from it hydroelectric power and it is also used in irrigation. The Aswan High Dam captures water flood during rain seasons and releases the water during times of drought. The dam also generates enormous amounts of electric power more than 10 billion kilowatt every year. That’s enough electricity to power one million color televisions for 20 years continuously. Unfortunately, the dam has also several negative side effects. In order to build the dam, Egyptian peasants had to move. To make matters worse, the rich silt that normally fertilized the dry desert land during annual floods is now at the bottom of Lake Nasser which lead to that the Farmers have been forced to use about one million tons of artificial fertilizer as a substitute for natural nutrients that once fertilized the arid floodplain. A lot of research proved that Egyptians prefer living along the Nile River because it’s much easier for their life rather than living in the desert or away from the Nile River. One of the most important things is using the Nile as main source for water. Water is one of the most important things for the human body because the human body consists of 60% of water which is a very big percentage .The health of the human body cannot work properly without the proper hydrations of the body .we have to drink half of our body weight in ounce every day. The water is very important for every organ inside our body. The brain consist 85% of water, the bones consist of 35% of water, blood consist of 83% of water and the liver consist of 90% of water. This proves how much the water is so important.

The first aim of every country is to raise the economical state. The economical state increase when the country make projects which come back with a lot of profits to themselves. This what the Nile should be used in Egypt to increase their economical state. There are a lot of economical projects that were made based on the Nile River. The first project that we are going to talk about is the high dam. As we said before, the high dam costs 1 billion dollar and can contain 5.97 trillion cubic feet of water. The high dam provide Egypt from south to north with high amount of electricity to run up their machine such that television, computer, lamps and their appliances. A lot of countries have problem for obtaining high amount of electricity like that in that easy way. This proves how this project which was based on the Nile is so essential now for the Egyptian and can’t live without it. The second project that we are going to talk about is the Nasser Lake. The Nasser lake is one of the biggest and best artificial lakes that were made with the water of the Nile river. Tourists come all over the world to see this beautiful lake which wad handmade by Egyptian with the Nile river water. The lake is extends for 350 miles which is about 560 kilometers and is about 6 mile which is about 10 kilometer wide. Tourists come there to see the impressive variety of animals. There people can find variety of mammals, reptiles and birds. Tourist also visits this wonderful lake for fishing trip because this lake contains about 32 different fish species which is a large number. The Third Project is Tuskha Project .This Project is completed yet but if this project is completed, it is capable of converting all the desert lands in Egypt into agricultural land. The Nile played a very important role in tourism, all tourists come all over the world to the how the Nile is great and they take a cruise from north Egypt to south Egypt and visit all the beauty which is on the Nile. The Nile can be used for a very important thing which is transportation. Egypt has a very big problem which is traffic jam. This is why the government should begin to plan how to use the Nile as a very good way for transportation. The Nile can be used in transporting people from one city to another. The government can also use the Nile in trading which will be very effective and will be a very good solution for the traffic jam because most of the traffic jam is because the trucks and the big busses, so the government should put this solution in the plan because it will help in developing Egypt to the good in the future.

Did you hear about the water war in the near future? It has been said that water will be “the oil of the 21st century,” or “liquid gold,” and that it will cause wars between nations. Water will be one of the hardest thing to obtain and will be very expensive and as we said before the human body can live without proper hydration of the body. All countries are facing this future problem which is the water war and it will be a critical problem that should be right now trying to find a solution for it. Water War is seen near; on the other hand Egypt doesn’t have a problem. A lot of research proved that Egypt is one of the most countries that will not be affected by this water war in the near future. But this is not a reason that Egyptian doesn’t take care and protects the Nile. Egyptian has to save the Nile water and protect it from pollution. God gave us a very good thing and we have to protect it and save its water as much as possible because researches proved that more that 32% of the consumed water is wasted without getting used of it. So this problem also should be solved. People can see that this is a small problem but in the near future it will be a big problem and may god protect all countries from this problem because people can’t live without water and this is what differ the earth from other planets.

As a conclusion, No one can live without the Nile River because no one can live without water this is why Nile is like the main artery of Egypt. The Nile is considered the only weapons that protect Egypt from the upcoming water war that will destroy a lot of countries. The Nile should be used to make project to increase Egypt economy such as the high dam, the Nasser Lake and the toshka project. We should try to get benefit of the Nile as much as possible as the ancient Egyptian was doing at their time, they knew how much the Nile is a gift from god .A lot of Egyptian doesn’t know how much Nile is important to them, they used the Nile every day in an indirect way, but they don’t think that all this from the Nile, so when use turn on your TV or your laptop you have to know that this is from the Nile. So what do you think, The Nile is important or not?