The Disappearing Delta
The Nile delta, Africa's most productive farmland, is gradually being eaten away. As sediment is trapped behind the Aswan High dam, the people who farm the land downstream on the delta are being deprived of the fertile silt that would normally be deposited by the river. To make matters worse, water quality is declining because of the build-up of chemical fertilisers that have been used to substitute for the loss of silt. The Nile may no longer bring silt but the river does leave behind up to one tonne per hectare of salts every year. Without the annual floods to wash away these salts, salinisation is becoming a major problem on the delta as the land becomes too salty to grow crops.

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