Four lakes formed recently in southern Egypt in an area that waspreviously desert. Fed by unusually high levels of rainfall and wateroverflowing from the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River, the first lakeappeared in 1998. The Aswan's overflowing waters are channeled throughan arroyo into a reservoir, as expected, but as the high rains havecontinued, so has the overflow. Consequently, the reservoir has grownin size and three more lakes have formed.
Authorities in Egypt estimate that, together, the lakes now hold about700 billion cubic feet of water--one quarter the Nile's total watersupply. Scientist don't know whether or not the lakes will remain, orwill dry up within a few years.
In this true-color image acquired by the Moderate-resolution ImagingSpectroradiometer (MODIS), on October 10, 2000, the lakes are the areas of darkpixels located about 50 km west of Lake Nasser.
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Image by Robert Simmon, Reto Stöckli, and Brian Montgomery, NASA GSFC
