Aswan Dam droughts in 1972–73 and 1983–87 that devastated East and West Africa. The High Dam allowed Egypt to reclaim about 2.0 million feddan (840,000 hectares) in the Nile Delta and along the Nile Valley, increasing the country's irrigated area by a third. The increase was brought about both by irrigating what used to be desert and by bringing under cultivation of 385,000 ha that were previously used as flood retention basins. About half a million families were settled on these new lands. In particular the area under rice and sugar cane cultivation increased. In addition, about 1 million feddan (420,000 hectares),
Hydropower policy in the United States of 90% efficiency. More importantly, Francis's mathematical and graphical calculation methods advanced turbine design and engineering and allowed confident design of high efficiency turbines to exactly match a site's flow conditions. In the 1870s and deriving from uses in the mining industry, the high efficiency Pelton wheel impulse turbine was developed to use hydropower under very different flow and pressure conditions. Advances in dam design also progressed, with the completion of Old Aswan Dam being considered a milestone of engineering over nature. At the time of its construction, nothing of such scale had ever been attempted: it also became one