EVALUATION AND CONTROL OF EVAPORATION IN HIGH DAM RESERVOIR

Abstract

Egypt is facing challenge of insufficient water resources due to limited share of the Nile water (55.5 BCM) according to the 1959 agreement. Most of this share is reserved in Lake Nasser prior its diversion to upstream to different uses. Lake Nasser is the storage bank of fresh water and its evaporation losses are an important influencing factor to the lake water budget. Reliable evaporation data are necessary for efficient management of the reservoir. The objective of this research is getting more precise estimation for monthly rate of evaporation from High Aswan Dam Reservoir to support Nile water management in Egypt using advanced techniques, also investigating the different proposed approaches of reducing the evaporation losses. In order to achieve this goal, the following procedures are applied: (i) Terra MODIS images for years 2006 and 2012 are collected and ILWIS software is used with SEBS algorithm and GLDAS atmospheric data.