ISS013-E-76441 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
Dark, curved lines on the inland (western) side of the spit show old positions of the spit. Most of Musallas Lagoon occupies the lower half of the image. By contrast with the spit, the shores of the lagoon are occupied almost entirely by a network of artificial structures—mainly short dikes enclosing hundreds of aquaculture ponds. The total area devoted to fish production in the lagoon is estimated to be 8,000 hectares (19,768 acres), which constitutes more than half of Egypt’s aquaculture production. An outlet to the Mediterranean Sea (top right) allows seawater recharge to the lagoon. Wind helps to circulate the water in this shallow lagoon; bright streaks on the lagoon (lower left) show the north-northwest direction of the wind on this day.
The intense aquaculture in the Nile Delta was born out of the impacts of the Aswan High Dam. The construction of the Aswan High Dam nearly a thousand kilometers upstream stopped the dramatic, and often catastrophic, seasonal floods that previously delivered nutrient-rich sediment from the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea. Nutrient concentration dropped to such a degree that the sea fishery around the delta collapsed in the mid-1960s to about 3 percent of the catch in preceding years. Aquaculture in various parts of Egypt during the last 30 years has partly made up for this loss, and consumption of fish has doubled in Egypt, although exports have not recovered.
