The River Nile and its two impoundments, the Aswan Reservoir and Lake Nasser, are important habitats for submerged and floating-leaved freshwater macrophytes (euhydrophytes) in the desert region of Egyptian Nubia. Ordination and classification analysis of survey data collected during the period 1980–1986 suggested that the Aswan High Dam forms a man-made vegetational boundary, delineating two basic macrophyte community types. In Lake Nasser a community dominated by Najas spp. is present. In the Aswan Reservoir and the R. Nile downstream of the old Aswan Dam the euhydrophyte community is dominated by a Potamogeton crispus — Ceratophyllum demersum association. Differences between the two community types appear to be related to differences in physical factors (e.g. water level fluctuation and flow regime), and water chemistry, to phenological factors, and to the differing successional ages of the macrophyte communities of the Nile system upstream and downstream of the Aswan High Dam. There is some evidence for depth zonation of the submerged macrophyte community in both lake and river habitats. Strategy analysis of the euhydrophyte communities present upstream and downstream of the High Dam, over the period 1963–89, indicated that successful established-phase strategy types were similar on both sides of the dam. In the long term there seems little to prevent euhydrophyte species at present confined to below the High Dam from crossing this boundary to colonise Lake Nasser.