On the negative side, farmers tend to overuse the always-
available water, therefore accidentally adding too much salt to
their fertile land (the salts are contained in the water and are
left behind as the water evaporates). Farmers now have to buy
expensive artificial fertilizers because the free fertilizer provided
by the Ethiopian silt is now locked up behind the dam. Those
silts gave nourishment to sardines in the Mediterranean Sea,
off the shore of the Nile Delta, but the sardine fishing industry
has come to an end because the silts are gone. Mediterranean
Sea water has begun to erode land from the Nile Delta, because
the silts are not rebuilding the delta’s headland. Land reclama-
tion has proven disappointing. Just getting water to the desert
does not make its sands fertile. The inputs have been costly and
the returns few. Comprising about 13 percent of Egypt’s total
cultivated area, reclaimed lands contribute only 2 percent of
the nation’s total agricultural output. Many of Nubia’s archaeo-
logical monuments were covered by Lake Nasser, or, like Abu
Simbel, had to be relocated to higher ground. Overall, however,
Egyptians defend the decision to build the Aswan High Dam
and argue that its benefits outweigh its problems.