How Did The Nile Affect Ancient Egypt's Environment

The Egyptian Empire could not have survived without the Nile. Egypt depended on the Nile for so many things, including watering the crops, transportation, jobs; everything that demanded water, the Nile had to supply because the Nile was and still is the only year-round river in Egypt. Without the Nile, how would Egyptians have watered their crops? They lived in a desert. How did the Nile affect Egypt's environment? Remember, the only river…Without the Nile, how did Egyptians get around? The 600 miles of Nile in ancient Egypt were the only thing Egyptians had to exploit. What were the religious beliefs surrounding the Nile? Without the Nile to sustain it, Egypt could not have survived as a civilization for as long as it did. In short, Egypt fed off the Nile. The Nile was its life force.

In response to the change in their environment when the floods came, during the season the Egyptian’s called akhet – the inundation - the Egyptians believed that the Nile gave them everything, including the ability to make the floods come. The Egyptians welcomed the change in seasons, because they had confidence that what the Nile took away, it would also give back. The Nile would provide for everything, including watering their crops. The ancient Egyptians could grow crops only in the mud and dirt left over when the Nile flooded. So they all had fields alongside the Nile, in an area known as the Black Land. Further away from the river was the Red Land, an expanse of hostile desert. No one would permanently survive there. Along with the impact the flood season had, Egypt’s special environment, the country was literally all sand, and the fact that the Nile flowed backwards, allowed the Egyptians to harness the power of the Nile, in the forms of dikes and irrigation ditches, and use it to their advantage. In this way, the Nile shaped