3 Water Resource Availability and Quality …
35
Fig. 4 International shared river basins crossing the region countries borders. Source PNUD (2016)
85% of Nile River flows. The Equatorial System, which originates in the Equatorial
Lake Plateau, has six sub-basins (Lake Victoria, Victoria-Nile, Lake Albert, Bahar
Eljebel, Bahr Alghazal, and White Nile). The Equatorial System contains the world’s
second-largest wetland/Sudd, where the White Nile River loses 57% of its flows by
evaporation before joining the Blue Nile in Khartoum (Sudan), forming the main
Nile River that flows North to meet the Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria (Egypt)
(NBI 2017).
3.2 Climate Change Impacts on the Nile River
The 2008 independent report of Blackmore and Whittington (2008) stresses that any
decision pertinent to Nile water has profound effects on poverty, development, and
security in the region. This demands a cooperative framework to manage prevailing
water scarcity conditions. Passive decisions and pathways that occur as a result of
climate change would likely have profoundly detrimental impacts on the region and
will drive water management. Water supply and demand in a changing climate will
be a critical concern for assuring long-term sustainability in the region.
The Nile River traverses substantially different climatic zones and ecosystems,
ranging from super-humid to desert. Annual rainfall shows a gradual increase in
the North-South direction with the mean for the basin of 571 mm, peaking in July–
August with a variation coefficient of 86% during the period 1901–2015. Spatially,
the equatorial basins are receiving almost 67% of the annual rainfall of the whole
basin. Furthermore, downstream countries (Sudan and Egypt) are the driest parts in
the region and rely heavily on the transboundary-generated runoff.
35
Fig. 4 International shared river basins crossing the region countries borders. Source PNUD (2016)
85% of Nile River flows. The Equatorial System, which originates in the Equatorial
Lake Plateau, has six sub-basins (Lake Victoria, Victoria-Nile, Lake Albert, Bahar
Eljebel, Bahr Alghazal, and White Nile). The Equatorial System contains the world’s
second-largest wetland/Sudd, where the White Nile River loses 57% of its flows by
evaporation before joining the Blue Nile in Khartoum (Sudan), forming the main
Nile River that flows North to meet the Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria (Egypt)
(NBI 2017).
3.2 Climate Change Impacts on the Nile River
The 2008 independent report of Blackmore and Whittington (2008) stresses that any
decision pertinent to Nile water has profound effects on poverty, development, and
security in the region. This demands a cooperative framework to manage prevailing
water scarcity conditions. Passive decisions and pathways that occur as a result of
climate change would likely have profoundly detrimental impacts on the region and
will drive water management. Water supply and demand in a changing climate will
be a critical concern for assuring long-term sustainability in the region.
The Nile River traverses substantially different climatic zones and ecosystems,
ranging from super-humid to desert. Annual rainfall shows a gradual increase in
the North-South direction with the mean for the basin of 571 mm, peaking in July–
August with a variation coefficient of 86% during the period 1901–2015. Spatially,
the equatorial basins are receiving almost 67% of the annual rainfall of the whole
basin. Furthermore, downstream countries (Sudan and Egypt) are the driest parts in
the region and rely heavily on the transboundary-generated runoff.