General Understanding of the River Nile

The Nile Basin can be interpreted as a source of conflict and contestation of different opinions, views and perspective even in the 21st Century. As an important source of food, economic activity and transportation, we can inarguably further define it as a battlefield of differing power relations and geopolitics.

Image taken from BBC: Top Gear

However, before diving into the deep political implications or a integrative discourse on the River Nile, we should definitely understand its generic characteristics in order to set the framework for deeper investigation into the more intricate network of links and power differentials it possesses.

The River Nile was once the longest river in the world (~6670km), before being dethroned by the Amazon River in 2007 (still contested). However, this simply illustrates the importance of the actual source and end of a river which further implies the ultimate actual length of it. Regardless, the River Nile still spans across more than half of Africa, from the Equatorial Lake Plateau consisting of Lakes Victoria, Kioga and Albert to the mouth into the Mediterranean Sea at the Nile River Delta near Cairo, Egypt.

Image taken from Google Maps

The actual length of the River Nile is constantly changing, however the immense length still remains an amazing feat considering that it is the only river that manages to flow even across the arid Sahara. This is strongly due to certain geological events, famous of which is the ability of the Nile to tap water through various different sources, from the Ethiopian Highlands to the Equatorial Lake region (same as Equatorial Lakes Plateau). Hence, the River Nile is blessed in the sense that water flows through the river all year round, depending on the seasonality and variability of precipitation in the different sources contributing to its flow. Taking into account the Nile's constant flow of water and its immense length, it becomes a source of life, possibly noted as "The Heart of East African life systems", like that of the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands to the Sahel. This therefore implicates the many parties involved in the utilisation of the resources provided by the River Nile, and naturally forms the basis of the geopolitics and differing power relations between the countries and users. 

However, other physical characteristics of the River Nile should also be taken into consideration before delving straight into the politics of the region revolving around this important natural resource as inputs such as the discharge of water at specific parts of the river indicates the limitations to certain uses of the river. Also, the differing countries and peoples living around the river may have varying uses and hence need of the Nile, implying the possible differing rights between users to the resource.

With the immense length of the River Nile, it spans across a range of latitudes which have possible effects on the sources of water supply for different countries surrounding the Nile. The rest of this post therefore aims to introduce a few of the key players involved in this 'contestation', before heading into detail with whatever relevant integrated water management systems they employ. 

We can simplify the classification into the 5 major players - Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and the upper Riparian States. It is clear that the differing latitudes offers a variation of actual precipitation levels which feedbacks into the river and hence the flow of the river varies significantly from country to country. However, besides the indirect influence of latitude on precipitation and consequently river discharge, there are also presence of other factors affecting precipitation at each individual section of the river as well as other exogenous factors that may affect the river's discharge.

Image taken from USGS

In this instance, we consider the relief of each individual country located along the River Nile, as can be seen, the Upper Riparian States such as Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda have a seemingly higher elevation as compared to the countries at nearer to the mouth of the River - Egypt and Sudan. Technically, with a higher relief, the surface temperatures are lower hence there is less evapotranspiration on surface waters, resulting in supposedly higher river flows as well as river recharge levels. This theoretical example provides us with a rough idea of the differences between countries along the Nile, and hence implores us to dig deeper and further investigate individual countries' use of the River Nile as well as its implied rights to the River. 

In conclusion, it is crucial to note that this magnificent creation's inherent nature of being the longest or one of the longest rivers in the world with a vertical flow across varying latitudes imply differing abilities of the people living around the river to use the resource. As such, this further implicates a presence of a space of contestation to rights of the River, be it upstream vs downstream or top-down bottom-up localised approaches. In the coming few blogs, we will take into account certain individual key players, before assessing the present water management strategies of the River Nile, and comparing that to strategies employed in other geographical locations across the world. 

References:

Collins, Robert O. (1990) The Waters of the Nile. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (2007) Case Study of the Nile River Basin. 

Conway, D. (2000). The climate and hydrology of the Upper Blue Nile River. The Geographical Journal, 166(1), 49-62.

Said, R. (2013). The River Nile: geology, hydrology and utilization. Elsevier.

Conway, D. (2000). The climate and hydrology of the Upper Blue Nile River. The Geographical Journal, 166(1), 49-62.

Said, R. (2012). The geological evolution of the River Nile. Springer Science & Business Media.