The big example that I have constantly used is the building of Aswan Dam in Egypt. I understand that this is a highly intensive capital infrastructure project and may be unrelated to IT Enterprise Architecture projects. But the lesson learnt that applies to Enterprise IT Architectures as well is that the consequences of the decisions made are never immediate. While the solution is always intended to solve the Problem Defined within the organizations constraints known at that time, the full positive and negative impacts is not known until later because of natural time lag. The decisions have to be made by leaders with the best data available and gut check.
Problem Definition for building of Aswan Dam – Without impoundment, the River Nile would flood each year during summer, as waters from East Africa flowed down the river as they did in ancient times. As the population along the river grew, there came a need to control the flood waters to protect and support farmland and cotton fields. In a high-water year, the whole crop might be entirely wiped out, while in a low-water year there was widespread drought and famine.
Negative Consequences – Environmental and cultural.
1. Flooded much of lower Nubia and over 60,000 people were displaced.
2. Lake Nasser flooded valuable archaeological sites. Abu Simbel is an archaeological site comprising two massive rock temples in southern Egypt on the western bank of Lake Nasser about 290 km southwest of Aswan. The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during in the 13th century BC. However, the complex was relocated in its entirety in the 1960s, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River.
3. The valuable silt which the Nile deposited ashore in the yearly floods and made the Nile floodplain fertile is now held behind the dam. Silt deposited in the reservoir is lowering the water storage capacity of Lake Nasser.
4. Poor irrigation practices are water logging soils and bringing salt to the surface.
5. Mediterranean fishing declined after the dam was finished because nutrients that used to flow down the Nile to the Mediterranean were trapped behind the dam.
6. Erosion of farmland down-river as the river replenishes its sediment load. Erosion of coastline barriers due to lack of new sediments from floods will eventually cause loss of the brackish water lake fishery that is currently the largest source of fish for Egypt, and the subsidence of the Nile Delta will lead to inundation of the northern portion of the delta with seawater, in areas which are now used for rice crops.
7. The delta itself, no longer renewed by Nile silt, has lost much of its fertility.
8. Red-brick construction industry, which used delta mud, is also severely affected.
9. Significant erosion of coastlines due to lack of sand, which was once brought by the Nile all along the eastern Mediterranean.
10. As salt water stagnates and evaporates it leaves behind salt crystals on the soil causing salination and decreased yield.
11. Standing water is a breeding ground for snails carrying the parasite bilharzias, the second most socio-economic negative parasite, second only to malaria.
12. Increased use of artificial fertilizers in farmland below the dam has caused chemical pollution which the traditional river silt did not.
13. Increase the salinity of the Mediterranean Sea affects the Mediterranean’s outflow current into the Atlantic Ocean. This current can be traced thousands of kilometers into the Atlantic.
14. Due to the Aswan Dam inhibiting the natural fluctuations in water height, i.e. floods, the bilharzias disease has flourished causing great expense to the Egyptian economy and people.
