Abstract
THE Qattara depression in the north-east of the Libyan Desert has an area of 19,500 square kilometres, an average depth of floor of 60 metres below sea-level, and a maximum depth of 134 metres. Rather more than a quarter of the floor is covered with a watery mixture of sand and salt, known as sabakha, which often has a crust over salty sludge. In the October issue of the Geographical Journal, Dr. J. Ball discusses in detail his proposal to utilise this depression for power production. He suggests the construction of four pipe lines to bring in the waters of the Mediterranean, which lies about fifty-six kilometres to the north. For a lake area of 13,500 square kilometres with a level below the sea of 50 metres, he calculates a permissible influx of 56,700,000 cubic metres a day. The level would be maintained by the heavy loss of water due to evaporation, which he calculates at 4-6 millimetres a day where the rainfall is not more than 20 millimetres a year. This process would, of course, lead to increasing salinity of the lake and the eventual filling up of the depression by saline deposits, but Dr. Ball calculates that this would not occur for many centuries. His plan foresees the gradual formation of a lake of the maximum depths extending over nearly two centuries. Dr. Ball has worked out his scheme in much detail and gives all the figures in his paper. It should be noted that the distance over which the power would need to be transmitted to the Nile delta is about 560 miles.
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The Qattara Depression and Water Power. Nature 132, 960–961 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132960d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132960d0