committee for six years, and chairman from 1967 till 1971. Besides his activities for the university and his numerous publications and consultancies, he assumed various offices at research and industrial institutes, e.g. at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Guest lectureships took him to Berlin, Madras, Alexandria and Cairo. Additionally he worked on regional models and water management of water-rich and water-poor countries such as Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, India, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. For the OECD and the European Communities he produced studies on the reserves and future needs of water. In 1977, he retired as professor emeritus, but still kept working as a consultant. Qattara Depression Project This project envisaged bringing water from the Mediterranean Sea near El Alamein into the Qattara Depression to generate hydroelectricity. The power plant was to have more output than the Aswan High Dam. Bassler led from 1964 onward the international "Board of Advisers" which was responsible for planning and financing activities of the project. He also advised the Egyptian government on the matter from 1975 onward. He was appointed to make a first preliminary feasibility study by the German Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn. Bassler was the driving force behind the Qattara Project for nearly a decade. Halfway through the seventies a team of eight mostly German scientists and technicians was working on the planning of the first hydro-solar depression power station in the world. The first "Bassler-study" of 1973 laid the basis for the Egyptian government to commission a study of its own. It decided in 1975 that Bassler and a group of companies known as "Joint Venture Qattara" should conduct a feasibility study of the project. The project concept was: Mediterranean water should be channelled through a canal or tunnel towards the Qattara Depression which lies below sea level. This water would then fall into the depression through penstocks for electricity generation. The water would evaporate quickly because of the very dry and hot weather once in the depression. This would allow for more water to enter the depression and would create a continuous source of electricity. A canal of 60 meters deep would connect the Mediterranean with the depressions edge at this narrow isthmus. This canal would deliver water to the depression as well as being a shipping route towards the Qattara lake with a harbour and fishing grounds in the depression. The depression was to be filled to a height of