African Unification Front
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NILE BASIN
The African Union's largest city is Cairo, on the Lower Nile in Egypt
The Nile River, is over 6800 km long. It is fed by two main river systems:
the White Nile, with its sources on the Equatorial Lake Plateau (Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Congo and Uganda), and the Blue Nile, with its sources in the Ethiopian Highlands. The sources are located in humid regions, with an average rainfall of over 1000 mm per year. The arid region starts in Sudan, the largest state in Africa, which can be divided into three rainfall zones: the extreme south of the country where rainfall ranges from 1200 to 1500 mm per year; the fertile clay-plains where 400 to 800 mm of rain falls annually; and the desert northern third of the country where rainfall averages only 20 mm per year. Further north, in Egypt, precipitation falls to less than 20 mm per year.
The Nile Basin represents 10.3% of the area of Africa and spreads over 13 states. Although the Nile basin forms only a very small part of the DRC territory, the sates of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan and Egypt, are completely integrated into the Nile basin. However, all the waters in Burundi and Rwanda and more than half the waters in Uganda are produced internally, while most of the water resources of Sudan and Egypt originate outside their borders: 77% of Sudan's and more than 97% of Egypt's water resources. Moreover, these latter two countries already use nearly all of the water currently allocated to them.
LOW DENSITY HYDROGRAPH OF AFRICA'S LARGEST RIVER BASIN:
 The Nile begins with the Luvinzora River in Burundi, a tributary of the Kagera River. The Kagera River forms the border between Rwanda and Tanzania, then flows into Lake Victora, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world with an area of about 67,000 km2. Total flow into the lake is about 20 km3 /year, of which 7.5 km3 from the Kagera River, 8.4 km3/year from the forest slopes in the north-east (Kenya), 3.2 km3/ year from the drier Serengeti Plains in the south-east (Tanzania) and from 1 to 2 km3 /year from the swamps in the north-west (Uganda).
The level of Lake Victoria is extremely sensitive to moderate changes in rainfall over the lake and its tributaries. Average lake rainfall and evaporation are the main factors affecting the lake balance and are more or less equal.
As evaporation varies little from year to year, high rainfall gives rise to a disproportionate surplus and also greatly increases the tributary flows which are themselves relatively more variable than the rainfall. The rise in lake level during 1961-64 of about 2 metres seems to be the result of a higher rainfall during that period over the lake and its basin. This surplus then influences the outflow which declines only gradually over a longer period of years.
The only outlet of Lake Victoria is at Ripon Falls (Owen Falls Dam) in Uganda. Then begins the Victoria Nile which flows through Lake Kyoga into Lake Albert (also called Lutta Nzige). This lake also receives water from the Semliki River, which originates in the Mufumbiru mountains in Congo and flows through Lake Edward to Lutta Nzige. The combined waters of the Semliki and the Victoria Nile leave Lake Albert at the northern end and become the Albert Nile, which then flows into Sudan.
Uganda is a humid region with numerous lakes and wetlands and with internal renewable water resources globally estimated at 39 km3/year. However, the total annual flow into the country (at Ripon Falls and from Congo) is about equal to the total annual outflow to Sudan, which means that a lot of water disappears within the country through evaporation and evapotranspiration from the lakes and wetland.
THE JONGELEI CANAL PROJECT
It was expected that the first phase of the construction of the Jonglei Canal will be terminated by 2000, giving 2 km3 per year of water both to Sudan and to Egypt. However, fighting between the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army [SPLA] and the Sudan Islamic Front [SIF]has delayed the project.
It should be noted that each time new land is reclaimed it is of a lower quality than the already cultivated land. The best soils in Egypt cover an area of only about 1 pillion ha, while the best plus suitable soils cover an area of about 3.6 million ha. Adding the still more marginal land, the maximum area for agriculture could be 4.8 million ha. The remaining soils are unsuitable for agriculture.
Taking an average water requirement of 13000 m3/ha per year in the Nile Valley and Delta, about 4,420,000 ha could be irrigated using the 57.4 km3/year of Nile water. The sum of the irrigation potential of the Nile valley leads to a water deficit of over 26 km3/year, without considering possibilities of reusing water, but after deducting the water 'losses' in the Sudd region.
Under the Nile Water Agreement between Sudan and Egypt, the quantity of water allocated to Sudan is 18.5 km3/year at Aswan, which corresponds to 20.55 km3 further upstream. The total amount of water becoming available through the construction of the Jonglei Canal is estimated at 8 km3 in 2015, of which 50% for Sudan and 50% for Egypt under the agreement between the two countries. Egypt considers 2 km3 to be available by the year 2000. Work on the canal is currently stopped as explained at the beginning of this section.
Entering Sudan, the Albert Nile becomes the Bahr el Jebel. It flows into the Sudd region, the great wetlands which are a maze of channels, lakes and swamps in southern Sudan, and which also receive water from the Bahr el Gazal River, originating in south-west Sudan.
The most remarkable topographic feature of the Sudd area is its flatness: for 400 km, from south to north, the slope is a mere 0.01 % and much of it is even flatter. The soils of the whole area are generally clayish and poor in nutrients. Rain falls in a single season, lasting from April to November and varying in the Sudd area from about 900 mm in the south to 800 mm in the north.
The "Sudd" swamp-plains of the Equatoria in Central-Eastern Africa
As the rainy season coincides with, though is slightly shorter than, the flood seasons of the rivers, there is land of water and mud for half of the year and, away from the rivers, land of desert-like dryness for the other half. The main natural channels flow through a swamp area waterlogged throughout the year, and are then flanked by grasslands flooded at high river and exposed when the river level drops. Because of the important rainfall in the Equatorial Lake Plateau during the 1960s and 1970s the permanent swamp area increased from 2700 km2 in 1952 to 16,200 km in 1980.
Less than half of the water entering the Sudd region flows out of it into the White Nile. The rest disappears through evaporation and evapotranspiration. The quantity entering the Sudd region varies greatly over the years, mainly depending on the rainfall in the upper catchment area, and hydrological measurements have shown that the greater the flow of water into the Sudd, the greater the percentage of water 'lost' in evaporation.
The Jongelei Canal is supposed to bypass the Sudd region and to direct downstream a proportion of the water considered lost each year by spill from the river and evaporation in the swamps. This water could then have become available for irrigation and other uses downstream in Sudan and Egypt. Construction of the canal began in 1978 for a planned total length of 360 km, but work stopped in November 1983 after 240 km because of the civil war. By that time it had also become clear that these 'losses' create resources in pasture and fisheries and that the canal causes enormous human and environmental problems in the area. The issue is now how much water can be drained from the Sudd through the construction of the Jonglei Canal without serious and irreparable damage to the local environment and economy and its potential expansion.
Jonglei Canal, Sudan. This project, partially excavated, involves digging a straight cut of 360|km through the Sudd swamplands in southern Sudan (from Borr to Malakal), which would channel the flow of the White Nile so efficiently, that the savings of water from evaporation, would increase the flow of the Nile downriver by 5-7%, for use by Sudan and Egypt. Moreover, the canal would give the surrounding area a vast improvement in usable farmland, transportation, and reduction in breeding grounds for mosquitoes, flukes, and other parasites. The canal was begun in 1978, using the gigantic ``Bucketwheel'' excavator, and as of 1981, was chewing a channel at the rate of 2|km a week. But in 1984, all work stopped. A length of 180|km, the northern portion of the canal, has been completed, but remains undeveloped; the Bucketwheel digger lies disabled.
In the 1980s, a coordinated operation was conducted by IMF, World Bank, and London circles to close down the project. Civil strife was instigated; propaganda was spread about the canal's harm to the environment, and similar dirty operations were mounted against Sudan. In 1994, Sudan's President, Gen. Omar Al Bashir, reiterated his desire to resume the Jonglei Canal Project, to develop the region.
The Sobat River, that flows into the White Nile just upstream of Malakal, is fed by the Baro and Akobo Rivers and others with catchment areas situated mainly in the southern Ethiopian foothills.
The Blue Nile and its main tributaries, the Dinder and the Rahad, rise in the Ethiopian mountains and around Lake Tana. The confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile is at Khartoum. Further downstream is the Atbara tributary, the last important tributary of the Nile system, again deriving from the Ethiopian plateau north-east of Lake Tana and forming the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea before entering Sudan. There are no important tributaries further downstream in Egypt.
The contribution of the rivers of the Ethiopian catchment area (Blue Nile system) to the Nile is about twice the contribution of the rivers of the Equatorial Lake Plateau catchment area (White Nile system), but it is characterized by the extreme range in discharges between the peak and low periods, while the flow from the Equatorial Lake Plateau is more uniform. At its peak the former provides nearly 90% of all water reaching Egypt, the latter only 5%. During the months with low flow the contributions are nearer 30% and 70% respectively.
Both Burundi and Rwanda are characterized by a rolling topography with a continuous pattern of hills and valleys, with lakes and marshy lowlands at the bottom of the valleys. Improving the drainage network in part of the swamp areas, combined where possible with an irrigation network, would allow year-round cultivation, which is important for these small, but very densely populated countries. The total area of these valley bottoms in the Nile basin is estimated at 105000 ha for Burundi and 150,000 ha for Rwanda.
For Tanzania the irrigation potential has been estimated at 30,000 ha, but this would require the construction of considerable water conveyance works. In addition to this, at the beginning of the century settlers from Germany, the then colonial power in the country, proposed a plan to transfer water from Lake Victoria to the Vembere Plateau in the Manonga River basin in central Tanzania to irrigate between 88,000 and 230,000 ha of cotton. Though this project is still on the table, it would be very expensive. The transfer would be effected by gravity as the plateau lies below the water level of the lake.
The Lake Victoria basin in Kenya covers only 8.5% of the total area
of the state but it contains over 50 % of the national freshwater
resources. The national water master plan identified an irrigation
potential of 180,000 ha based on 80% dependable flow. As part of the
plan, dams and water transfers to other (sub) basins are proposed.
At present only about 6000 ha are irrigated.
Moreover, in Kenya there has been lengthy debate as to whether, given adequate technology, Lake Victoria basin water should be transferred to arid areas of the country for irrigation. It is considered that perhaps the most appropriate location for such an experiment would be the Kerio Valley (see section The Rift Valley), for which a special development authority has been established by the Kenyan Parliament. The feasibility of such a project is a question of engineering and several observers consider it possible. Such an undertaking would use significant quantities of water. Projects of this kind are analogous to the irrigation of the Vembere steppe proposed in Tanzania (see above).
The Nile basin in Congo covers less than 1 % of the area of the country. The area is hilly and does not really lend itself to irrigation. This area is rather densely populated with most people engaged in cattle rearing and fishery activities around Lake Albert. It is considered that about 10,000 ha could be developed for irrigation.
Uganda has large swamp areas covering about 700,000 ha. The irrigation potential is estimated at 202000 ha, requiring, however, major works such as storage, river regulation and large-scale drainage. At present only 5,550 ha are irrigated.
The irrigation potential in the Nile basin in Ethiopia has been estimated at more than 2.2 million hectares. The irrigated area was about 23,000 ha in 1989.
The seasonality of the flows in Ethiopia is very high. This means that very considerable regulation would be necessary for their full utilization. The risk of rapid siltation of the reservoirs because of the steep slopes is a real problem. Construction of dams would augment the quantity of water available, because of a loss of only 3 % by evaporation as against a loss of almost 16% in the Aswan reservoir. Egypt, however, would no longer be the beneficiary of additional water in years of high flood, which would then be stored and regulated in the Blue Nile reservoirs instead of Aswan.
The irrigation potential in the Nile basin in Eritrea has been estimated at between 60,000 and almost 300,000 ha, though these figures are based on very limited studies. Most of it would be in the Tekeze-Setit basin, which Eritrea shares with Ethiopia. The Mereb-Gash basin has mainly spate flows and its water reaches the Atbara River in Sudan only during extremely high floods. In this review the average irrigation potential has been estimated at 150000 ha.
Irrigation potential in Sudan has been estimated at over 4.8 million hectares, but this figure does not take into consideration the available water resources. The irrigated area was about 1.6 million hectares in 1979 and 1.9 million hectares in 1990. There are plans to increase irrigation to about 2.8 million hectares by the year 2000, almost all to be irrigated by Nile water.
The actual irrigated area in 1990 was about 1.2 million hectares, or about 63 % of the total equipped area of 1.9 million hectares. About 16.8 km3 of water was used, corresponding to 14000 m3/ha. Despite this relatively high value, water management is a problem, for example water supply on the old established cotton schemes of Gezira-Managil was and is about 12% below crop requirements at crucial points in the growth cycle. At the same time, as much as 30% of the water delivered is not used by crops. In large state-run irrigation projects, like Gezira-Managil and Khashm al Girba, average water deliveries to the command area are between 9700 and 12600 m3 per cultivated hectare per year. Sugar cane, a very water-consuming crop, uses between 28,000 and 40,000 m3 per ha per year.
The Aswan High Dam, when it was build created Lake Nasser, Lake Nasser Streches back 270 kilometres from the Dam. The Lake has also created a lot more land for people to farm on. This is because a lot of water is stored in the lake, and in turn this water can be used to irrigate land around the lake. Lake Nasser has also created a big fishing industry, which produces 25,000 tonnes of fish a year, the fishing industry is aiming to produce 100,000 tonnes by the year 2000.
The Toshka Project for land reclamation in southern Egypt is the first step of a decades-long plan, which in the future will provide new living space for millions of Egyptians.
Several lakes formed in the Toshka Depression [lower left quadrant]
The location of the Toshka Project is to the west of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, where the Toshka Depression is located. The project involved diverting Nile waters, from the Toshka overflow basin, through a 360-kilometer-long canal, into the desert. The lakes have created the basis for thousands of hectares of new agricultural land, and new towns for hundreds of thousands of people. Construction began in January 1997 and in the sequence of flooding begining in 1998 has created at least three new lakes that continue to grow.
STALLED PROJECTS
Qattara Depression
This energy project in northwestern Egypt was actively under study in Egypt in 1982-83, by a committee whose members included the ministers of Industry, Petroleum, Electricity, Agriculture, and Tourism, who were to determine the best way to develop hydro-power potential. Engineers from Sweden and Germany were involved in studies; and also, some years earlier, studies of the Qattara energy and water potential were conducted by the Japanese Global Infrastructure Fund (1977), and in the 1950s, by the U.S. ``Project Plowshare'' of the Atoms for Peace program.
In an interview with EIR on Dec. 17, 1982, Egypt's Electricity Minister Maher Abaza, still today a government minister, said that the Germans estimated in the 1980s that it would cost $3 billion to build the Qattara canal-tunnel project using peaceful nuclear explosives, and $6 billion using conventional excavation. The project was shelved.
Nuclear Power
In December 1982, Energy Minister Abaza described to EIR the goals for developing nuclear power in Egypt by the year 2000. He said: ``At the end of the century, hydro-power will be the source of 10-15% of energy, 10-15% will be gas-powered stations, 15% will be coal-powered stations, and 15% diesel-powered stations. The rest, which is 40%, we expect to be nuclear power stations. We do not want to have all our eggs in one basket.'' This was thwarted.
Jonglei Canal
This project, partially excavated, involves digging a straight cut of
360|km through the Sudd swamplands in southern Sudan (from Borr to Malakal),
which would channel the flow of the White Nile so efficiently, that the
savings of water from evaporation, would increase the flow of the Nile
downriver by 5-7%, for use by Sudan and Egypt. Moreover, the canal would
give the surrounding area a vast improvement in usable farmland,
transportation, and reduction in breeding grounds for mosquitoes, flukes,
and other parasites. The canal was begun in 1978, using the gigantic
``Bucketwheel'' excavator, and as of 1981, was chewing a channel at the
rate of 2|km a week. But in 1984, all work stopped.
A length of 180|km, the northern portion of the canal, has been completed, but remains undeveloped; the Bucketwheel digger lies disabled. In the 1980s, a coordinated operation was conducted by IMF, World Bank, and London circles to close down the project. Civil strife was instigated; propaganda was spread about the canal's harm to the environment, and similar dirty operations were mounted against Sudan. In 1994, Sudan's President, Gen. Omar Al Bashir, reiterated his desire to resume the Jonglei Canal Project, to develop the region.
Death toll from stalled projects
The above are just the most prominent of infrastructure development plans that were prevented by the international regime of the IMF. The damage and death toll from this obstruction has been huge over the past 20 years. In Sudan, over the 1980s, an estimated 1 million lives have been lost, due to the dislocation, warfare, and starvation because of preventable lack of food. In 1985, a famine took thousands of lives. During the entire 1980s and 1990s, the IMF has acted to oppose any development initative, and to isolate Sudan.
In Egypt, over the 1980s and 1990s, the population has become more and more dependent on food imports each year, after centuries of food surpluses and exports. In 1974, Egypt became a net food importer; as of 1990, Egypt depended on imports for over 40% of its annual basic cereal grains. This food dependency is not dictated by any lack of resource base, but came about because of the anti-infrastructure moves forced on Egypt over the past 25-30 years.
Given the basic factors of climate, soils, and water potentially available in the Egypt-Sudan Nile corridor of northeast Africa, this rich agricultural region could feed hundreds of millions of people in Africa and the Middle East, with abundance. Egypt, with 60 million people, and Sudan (the largest country in Africa), with 28 million people, occupy the strategic gateway between Africa and the Eurasian continent, where link-up with the Eurasian Land-Bridge projects could mean a 21st century of development.
Toshka Project
The Toshka Project was officially inaugurated at a ceremony on Jan. 9, 1997 by President Mubarak. Thirty-seven years earlier to the day, President Gamal Abdel Nasser attended the opening ceremony for the Aswan High Dam. The official name of the Toshka Project is the National Project for Developing Upper Egypt (NPDUE). Toshka is the name of the depression near the Nile, at the point near the beginning of the new canal, designed to take water from the Nile along a length of 310|km to new communities in the desert. The aim is to ``go out from the Nile Valley,'' and to set up new agro-industrial population centers in the central Western Desert. The town of New Tiba, built on an area of 700 feddans (one feddan is about an acre), is to have a population of 35-150,000; the proposed town of New Aswan (to be built on an area of 250 feddans), is intended for 50-75,000 people.
The goal is to reclaim some 1 million feddans (420,000 hectares) of land for farming, irrigated equally by groundwater and by canal-borne water from the Nile. Water from the Nile will be diverted north-westward, pumped out at a station on Lake Nasser, just north of the Toshka outfall. The Nile water will run along a route that some geologists believe was the former western branch of the Nile. Its course follows underground aquifers. There is the possibility that water used to irrigate reclaimed land, will additionally have the benefit of contributing to recharging the aquifers.
The Toshka Project is sometimes also called the ``New Delta'' project. Similar plans for a ``New Valley'' were put forward in the recent past. President Nasser had backed development of Western Desert oases, based on drawing water from the Nubian aquifers. These are the same types of water deposits lying beneath the Sahara, that are being tapped for the source of Libya's Great Man-Made River Project.
Egyptian geologist Dr. Farouk Al Baz, director of Boston University's Remote Sensing Department, has carried out satellite mapping of the patterns and geologic history of underground water in the Western Desert of Egypt.
In the 1970s, President Anwar Sadat's administration backed the idea of permanently filling the Toshka Depression, which is designed to take overflow from Lake Nasser, and build a canal to irrigate projects in the New Valley. The first time the Toshka overflow canal, completed in 1978, came into use, was on Oct. 6, 1996, when the level of Lake Nasser, behind the Aswan Dam, reached the record high of 178.10 meters (584 feet) above sea level.
With the new Toshka Project, the government plans on taking some 5 billion cubic meters of water out of Lake Nasser yearly. Under the terms of the 1959 Nile-watersharing agreement with Sudan, in which Egypt's annual entitlement is 55.5 billion cubic meters, Egypt would then offset the Lake Nasser withdrawals by limiting use elsewhere, which the government has said can be done by a number of means, including recycling treated wastewater, and improving agricultural methods in the Delta.
A centerpiece of the construction to date is what is known as the "world's biggest bulldozer", a 750 horsepower earth-moving machine. The canal channel is 30 meters wide, being dug out of sand and rock. The channel is called the Sheikh Zayed Canal, after Sheikh Zayed al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, which is financially backing the project.
The water must be raised between 21.5 and 53 meters (70 and 175 feet). It will be lifted out of the Aswan High Dam Lake, and into the Toshka Depression. The pumping station is intended to have a capaity rate of lifting 300 cubic meters (66,000 gallons) per second. It will be powered by electricity. The project is expected to cost about $300-400 millions.
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