GEOG 140 Lecture 3: Dams and Floods
4 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
Floods frequently and claimed more than 1 million live in past 100 years. First proposal to build dam in 1919. After terrible floods in 1950, feasibility study was ordered to study dam construction for flood. Important: purpose: hydroelectricity, flood prevention and navigation. Created reservoir is hundreds of feet deep and almost 400 miles long. The dam floods 395 miles ^2 of land. This dam can power 18 nuclear plants. Hep as a source of fuel is cleaner than coal burning. This will result a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The extra electricity will stimulate new manufacturing enterprises which will bring new jobs. Toxic industry were not cleaned up well and are now in the water. Controls flooding of areas of the nile delta. Side note: it created lake nasser which brought 80000 tons of fish. Before the dam, an estimated 5,500 tons of phosphates and 280,000 tons of silicate were discharged by the nile during floods.
