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 below 147 m above sea level, 90 km live storage, and 41 km of storage for high flood waters above 175m above sea level. The annual sediment load of the Nile is about 134 million tons. This means that the dead storage volume would be filled up after 300–500 years if the sediment accumulated at the same rate throughout the area of the lake. Obviously sediment accumulates much faster at the upper reaches of the lake, where sedimentation has already affected the live storage zone. Before the construction of the High Dam, the 50,000 km of irrigation and drainage canals