Dam be built on the basis of these principles. The era of large dams was initiated with the construction of the Aswan Low Dam in Egypt in 1902, a gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River. Following their 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, the British began construction in 1898. The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers of the time, including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor. Capital and financing were furnished by Ernest Cassel. When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing
Economy of Egypt border, behind the Aswan High Dam. Just north of Cairo, the Nile spreads out over what was once a broad estuary that has been filled by riverine deposits to form a fertile delta about wide at the seaward base and about from south to north. Before the construction of dams on the Nile, particularly the Aswan High Dam (started in 1960, completed in 1970), the fertility of the Nile Valley was sustained by the water flow and the silt deposited by the annual flood. Sediment is now obstructed by the Aswan High Dam and retained in Lake Nasser. The interruption