Comparing And Contrasting Of Snails Of The Nile
The Comparing and Contrasting of Snails of the Nile Essay
The Nile River is a river that winds through Africa into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River is considered to be the river of life for both people and wildlife. People who live along the river have the highest rate of bladder cancer. The Schistosoma Haematobium or blood fluke, which is carried by a snail called the Bulinus Truncatus, infects many people who live along the river. There is a parasitic worm which burrows into blood vessels of the human bladder.
The Aswan High dam was built in the mid 1950s by the Egyptian government. It was built to conserve water and provide hydroelectric power. The purpose was to improve the quality of life for people living along the Nile. When the construction started people didn't realize that making better use of the river water would endanger human health.
This is what the ecosystem was like below the dam. A network of canals was built. The canals acted like slow moving streams which is the perfect environment for the bulinus snail. The slow moving streams mean more plant life there. The snails are what carry the blood fluke which gets people infected when they go in or drink the water. As a result 80 percent of the people were infected and now have the blood fluke.
This is what the ecosystem was like above the dam. The hippopotami were once abundant in the waters. They ate the vegetation where the snails live. By eating the plants the hippos kept the population of snails under control. After the construction of the dam the rising waters forced the hippos out. As a result this means there are more snails and the infection increasing.
These are the similarities between above and below the dam. A similarity is that the infection increased in humans. A second similarity is that there was an increase in the amount of snails. A third similarity is the increase in vegetation which means an increase in food...
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