Aswan Dam links the reservoir to the Toshka Depression. The reservoir, named Lake Nasser, is long and at its widest, with a surface area of . It holds of water. Due to the absence of appreciable rainfall, Egypt's agriculture depends entirely on irrigation. With irrigation, two crops per year can be produced, except for sugar cane which has a growing period of almost one year. The high dam at Aswan releases, on average, water per year, of which some are diverted into the irrigation canals. In the Nile valley and delta, almost benefit from these waters producing on average 1.8 crops per
Aswan Dam that time the U.S. feared that communism would spread to the Middle East, and it saw Nasser as a natural leader of an anticommunist procapitalist Arab League. America and Britain offered to help finance construction of the High Dam, with a loan of $270 million, in return for Nasser's leadership in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. While opposed to communism, capitalism, and imperialism, Nasser presented himself as a tactical neutralist, and sought to work with both the U.S. and the USSR for Egyptian and Arab benefit. After a particularly criticized raid by Israel against Egyptian forces in Gaza in 1955, Nasser