Editing Irrigation (section)

====Africa====
Different irrigation schemes with various goals and success rates have been implemented across Africa in the 20th century but have all been influenced by colonial forces. The [[Tana River (Kenya)|Tana River]] Irrigation Scheme in eastern [[Kenya]], completed between 1948 and 1963, opened up new lands for agriculture. The Kenyan government attempted to resettle the area with detainees from the [[Mau Mau rebellion|Mau Mau uprising]].<ref>[[#refParker2020|Parker 2020]].</ref> Italian oil drillers discovered Libya's underground water resources during the [[Italian colonization of Libya]]. This water lay dormant until 1969, when [[Muammar Gaddafi|Muammar al-Gaddafi]] and American [[Armand Hammer]] built the [[Great Man-Made River]] to deliver the Saharan water to the coast. The water largely contributed to irrigation but cost four to ten times more than the crops it produced were worth.<ref>[[#refMcNeill2000|McNeill 2000]] p. 155</ref>

In 1912, the [[Union of South Africa]] created an irrigation department and began investing in water storage infrastructure and irrigation. The government used irrigation and dam-building to further social goals like poverty relief by creating construction jobs for poor whites and irrigation schemes to increase white farming. One of their first significant irrigation projects was the [[Hartbeespoort Dam]], begun in 1916 to elevate the living conditions of the 'poor whites' in the region and eventually completed as a 'whites only' employment opportunity.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/60573 |title=White South Africa's 'weak sons': Poor whites and the Hartbeespoort Dam |vauthors=Clynick T |date=2007 |publisher=Wits University Press |isbn=978-1-86814-669-7 |veditors=Esterhuysen A, Jenkins T, Bonner P |pages=248–274 |chapter=A Search for Origins: Science, history and South Africa's "Cradle of Humankind"}}</ref> The [[Pretoria]] irrigation scheme, [[Kammanassie Dam|Kammanassie project]], and Buchuberg irrigation scheme on the [[Orange River]] all followed in the same vein in the 1920s and 30s.<ref name="Visser 2018" />

In Egypt, modern irrigation began with [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali Pasha]] in the mid-1800s, who sought to achieve Egyptian independence from the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottomans]] through increased trade with Europe—specifically cotton exportation.<ref>[[#refRoss2017|Ross 2017]] p. 33.</ref> His administration proposed replacing the traditional [[flooding of the Nile|Nile basin irrigation]], which took advantage of the annual ebb and flow of the Nile, with irrigation barrages in the lower Nile, which better suited cotton production. Egypt devoted 105,000 ha to cotton in 1861, which increased fivefold by 1865. Most of their exports were shipped to England, and the United States Civil War-induced cotton scarcity in the 1860s cemented Egypt as England's cotton producer.<ref>[[#refRoss2017|Ross 2017]] p. 32.</ref> As the Egyptian economy became more dependent on cotton in the 20th century, controlling even small Nile floods became more important. Cotton production was more at risk of destruction than more common crops like [[barley]] or wheat.<ref>[[#refMcNeill2000|McNeill 2000]] p. 167</ref> After the [[history of Egypt under the British|British occupation of Egypt in 1882]], the British intensified the conversion to perennial irrigation with the construction of the [[Delta Barrage]], the [[Assiut Barrage]], and the first [[Aswan Low Dam|Aswan Dam]]. Perennial irrigation decreased local control over water and made traditional subsistence farming or the farming of other crops incredibly difficult, eventually contributing to widespread peasant bankruptcy and the [['Urabi revolt|1879-1882 'Urabi revolt]].<ref>[[#refRoss2017|Ross 2017]] p. 37-38.</ref>