Climate change, land-cover dynamics and ecohydrology of the Nile River Basin

✍ Scribed by Assefa M. Melesse; Athanasios G. Loukas; Gabriel Senay; Muluneh Yitayew

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 42 KB
• Volume: 23
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.7522

✦ Synopsis

PROBLEMS

The Nile River system (Blue and White) is regarded as one of the most important ecohydrological systems of the world. Although the freshwater carried by Nile accounts a very small fraction of the volume of water compared to Amazon (2%), Mississippi (15%) and Mekong (20%) Rivers, its diverse ecological richness, history, mosaiced landscape and land-cover makes it unique and a valuable resource to the basin countries (Collins, 2002). The basin is the home of over 20 million people in 10 countries providing basic livelihoods for agriculture, fishing, tourism, recreation, power generation and domestic water supply (El-Fadel et al., 2003). Despite the rich resources, the basin is also characterized by limited knowledge on the ecohydrology of the basin.

Studies have shown that the river system has shown a fluctuation of seasonal and annual flows, and in some watersheds a decline in dry season flows. This is mainly driven by impacts of the erratic and unpredicted changes in climate variables and undesirable changes in land-use on hydrologically and hydraulically sensitive segments of the river system. Ecological stress on the natural resources such as vegetation, soil and water is significant from the ever increasing demand for tillable land by the increasing population and also from lack of watershed management. Given the trend in demand for resources (water, land, fire-wood, etc.), extreme climatic events and climate change will make sustenance challenging. Some predict the worst is yet to come, unless we take active measures and adapt to the changes.

Despite its contribution to the Nile flow system, the amount of scientific information and hydrometeorological data for the Blue Nile River Basin is very limited when compared to the downstream segment of the Nile River (Melesse et al., 2009). Those available are dispersed and studies are not systematic and organized. Taking active