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Nile Delta
| Lena River Delta
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| Images
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| Location and History
| - The Nile delta is located in Northern Egypt where the Nile spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea
- In antiquity it was flooded on an annual basis, until the construction of the Aswan Dam.
- Most of the historical remains of the Delta have not survived the flooding of the Nile, and the repeated plowing of the fields.
- Up to the 1960s the delta expanded northwards into the Mediterranean Sea as Nile floods deposited their annual sediment loads.
After the construction of the Aswan Dam the sediments are blocked by Lake Nasser, and the sediment-starved delta is slowly sinking and its shoreline is retreating.
| - Siberia's Lena River with a length of 4250 km, is the longest river in Russia
- The river delta empties into the Laptev Sea
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| Climate
| - Hot arid climate, characterized by little winter rainfall.
- Temperatures averaging 30C in summer, and 15C in winter.
| - An arctic eco-region which experiences seven months of winter before the snow-covered tundra transforms into wetland.
- The ground is permanently frozen, often to depths in excess of 15 m
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| Area and shape
| - Area 25000 km2
- The width of the Nile Delta covers 240 km of Mediterranean coastline
- 160 km in length
- Records from ancient times show that the delta had seven distributaries, there are now only two main branches, the Damietta in the east and the Rosetta in the west
| - The fan-shaped delta covers some 28500 km2 and has a maze of hundreds of small distributaries
- The only distributary of significance being the Trotimorskaya, which flows into the eastern part of the delta.
- 400 km wide
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| Population
| - Egyptians have been intensively farming in the Delta for 5000 years.
- The Delta is among the most densely populated agricultural areas in the world
| - Virgin wild land - very few hunters
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| Agriculture and land use
| - A very rich agricultural region
- The ample space available in the delta offered much better conditions for agriculture than the Nile Valley,
which at some points was very narrow and surrounded by rocky hills
- In total the cultivable area of the delta alone was 2/3 of the entire Nile basin
| - Historically no agricultural activities
- The tundra surface is composed of relatively large and complex patterned ground, which results from the annual freezing and thawing process.
- Ice wedges and other similar arctic landforms are present.
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| Wild life
| - Wild life has long been diminished or extinct since antiquity by local population and agriculture.
- It includes some lotus flowers, small fish and migrating birds
| - The Lena Delta Reserve is the most extensive protected wilderness area in Russia.
- It is an important refuge and breeding ground for many species of Siberian
wildlife including swans, geese, ducks, plovers, sandpipers, snipes, phalaropes, terns, skuas, birds of prey, passerines and gulls
- The summer wetland also supports abundant populations of fish and marine mammals.
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