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Photo courtesy of Rüdiger Heimlich

The water at the Mubarak Pumping Station will be channeled through 170 miles of canals (shown here) to 1,600 square miles of the Southwest Desert, where farming communities are being built. Egypt hopes that the reclaimed desert will support six million people within 20 years and provide new export crops. A number of archaeologists are concerned that these other projects will destroy all remains of Egypt’s pre-pharaonic, Neolithic civilization.