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Science 30 April 1993:
Vol. 260. no. 5108, pp. 628 - 634
DOI: 10.1126/science.260.5108.628
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Articles

Nile Delta: Recent Geological Evolution and Human Impact

Daniel Jean Stanley 1 and Andrew G. Warne 1

1 Mediterranean Basin Program, Paleobiology E-207, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560

Few countries in the world are as dependent on water from a single source as Egypt. The natural Nile cycle of flow and sediment discharge has been disrupted by human intervention, including closure of the High Aswan Dam; this intervention has resulted in a series of responses that now threaten the northern Nile delta. Erosion, salinization, and pollution are inducing a marked decline in agricultural productivity and loss of land and coastal lagoons at a time when the population is expanding exponentially. Geological analyses of radiocarbon-dated cores across the northern delta are used to interpret the interaction of sea-level changes, climatic oscillations, subsidence, and transport processes during the past 35,000 years. Recognition of long-term trends of these natural factors provides a basis to evaluate the profound impact of human activity and to assess future changes in the Nile delta ecosystem.


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