A form that accommodates the mess

Wadi Toshka is a dry riverbed on the west side of Lake Nasser in Egypt. To the west if it are several natural depressions which are used for overfill control in the event of heavy rains at the sources of the Nile. For the last twenty years or so, the Egyptian government has been trying to take advantage of this to start up irrigation and agriculture between the Nile and the Baris Oasis several hundred kilometers to the north and east of Lake Nasser. Like most massive geo-engineering projects, it has dragged well past its planned date.

There's been better-than-average rains since about 2013, capped by the Sudanese floods of Winter 2021, and so right now the Toshka lakes are as big as they've ever been. This is a picture of them taken from the ISS in November 2021.

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