Water resources management in modern Egypt water management in Egypt begins with the construction of the Old Aswan Dam in 1902 and barrages on the Nile in the 19th and early 20th century. The Old Aswan Dam partially stored the waters of the Nile to allow the growing of multiple crops per year in the Nile Delta, while the barrages raised the water level of the Nile so that water could be diverted into large irrigation channels running in parallel to the river. The water regime of the river was changed fundamentally in 1970 when the Aswan High Dam was completed, eliminating the annual Nile flood.
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