The Nile river basin

1. The Nile river basin

2. Major information • Basin area: 3.1 million km2, including 81,500 km2 of lakes and 70,000 km2 of swamps • Basin population: 160 million, or 57% of the entire population of the basin’s 10 riparian countries: Burundi, D.R. Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda • Primary water uses: irrigation, industry, domestic supply, hydropower, and navigation • Irrigated area of the basin: 5.5 million ha, • with potential of 10.2 million ha

3. Challenges of the Nile river basin countries • Poverty • Food insecurity • Water shortages • Landdegradation • Pollution from effluents • Soil erosion • Loss of biodiversity • Sedimentation of lakes and reservoirs • Pollution by agro-chemicals and industrial waste • Salination of wetlands of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda • and Sudan

5. Aswan dam Major dams on the Nile Roseires dam Sennar dam Owen Falls dam

6. The major cities that are located on the edge of the Nile and White Nile • Cairo • Gondokoro • Khartoum • Aswan • Thebes/Luxor • Karnak • Thetown of Alexandria which lies near the Rozeta branch.

7. History of the Nile crisis • In 1929 Britain signed the Nile Basin Treaty with Egypt, pledging on behalf of its colonies not to undertake any works that would reduce the volume of water flowing to Cairo • Revised in 1959, the agreement shared out the waters of the Nile between Egypt and Sudan • According to the treatment between Egypt and Sudan no country can undertake a project of whatever magnitude without express of approval of Egypt ‘

8. Section 4 (ii) of the 1929 agreement reads: "Save with the previous agreements of the Egyptian government,no irrigation or power works or measures are to beconstructed or taken on the river Nile and its branches, or onthe lakes from which it flows, so far as all these are in the Sudan or countries under British administration, which would in such a manner as to entail any prejudice to the interests of Egypt, either reduce the quantity of water arriving in Egypt or modify the date of its arrival."

9. The total annual discharge of the Nile between Egypt and Sudan was measured at 74 billioncubic meters from which the former wasallocated two-thirds - or 55.5 billion cubic meters - with the latter awarded the remaining 18.5 billion cubic meters.

10. In 1980 Egypt rejected Ethiopia’s project about irrigation system and hydro-power development of that region. • In 1980 Tanzania declared the plan of drawing water from lake Victoria to supply Kahama and Shinyanga regions. This plan controverts to Britain-Egypt-Sudan treaty. • Kenya has also embarked on a project to draw water from rivers that flow into Lake Victoria to draw water for irrigation projects.

11. Uganda case • Uganda lies 100% in the Nile basin, but it suffers from adequate access of fresh water. • In order to solve the problem Uganda started "sell" the Nile waters at it exits at Nimule. • Uganda claims: "Those were the British, they were not ourselves," he said. "Egypt has no right to monopolise the use of the Nile water for irrigation. It cannot deprive others from using it."