A cultural and historical analysis of the recent past of the Nile Valley shows how interpretations and perceptions of territory, space, and nature are not necessarily indisputably “true” and definitive principles. On the contrary, they are constructed and, therefore, changeable. Egypt has traditionally interpreted the Nile Valley as a single hydrological entity under its civil and cultural leadership. However, as independent nation-states arose in Africa, the Nile was broken up into many geographical units. The embankment dams or dammed waters along its course are a symbol of the appropriation of water as a national commodity, often in contradiction to the actual hydrological and ecological characteristics of the Nile basin.
DOI: doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6141