6 - 12 September 2001
Issue No.550
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 September 2001 Issue No.550 |
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Troubled waters
Fatemah Farag follows the turbulent flow of this year's annual flooding of the River Nile
News of the devastation wreaked by this year's record-high annual flood of the River Nile on Ethiopia and Sudan reached Egypt even faster than the waters that rushed down their course towards Lake Nasser, where they were blocked by the Aswan High Dam. The flood's starting-point is in Ethiopia, specifically in the north-west highlands where the Blue Nile begins to take form. This year, rains were 25 per cent heavier than usual.
The waters gain momentum during a 1,200- metre mountainous descent and, following a 1,600- kilometre journey, they join the waters of the White Nile, which begins in Lake Victoria and flows through Lake Albert down the Murchison Falls and on through 50 kilometres of cataracts at Gondorko. The Blue Nile water accounts for approximately 80 per cent of the combined volume of the annual flood surge. This year's increase was such that it overflowed the banks of the Nile, leaving many villages in Ethiopia submerged before moving on to take its toll on Sudan.
Khartoum and further north were hard hit. According to United Nations reports, tens of thousands have been displaced. The 2001 main- season cereal crop was all but ruined, said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The latest reports indicate that the level of flood waters in Khartoum remains critical.This is the highest flood in 20 years, higher even than that of 1988 in which dozens were killed and 2 million left homeless in both Sudan and Ethiopia.
Egypt has been saved major damage courtesy of the High Dam, the nation's central water reserve built by approximately 40,000 people who worked for 11 years, completing it in 1971. Today, during the inundation, 87 billion tons of water are stored behind the dam in Lake Nasser. When the lake waters become extremely high, the Nasser and Toshka spillways are opened to relieve the pressure on the dam. "With proper management and the release of water through the Toshka spillway, I think we can manage," Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mahmoud Abu Zeid told reporters this week.
Down south, 500 dam monitoring stations and 13 seismic-activity recorders have been put on high alert to pre- empt potential flood danger. According to Abu Zeid, "Our expectation is that the flood will not be extremely high. We cannot be sure until the end of September, early October. There is no way to predict, but with the spillways we can accommodate very high floods."
Although 100 per cent accurate prediction is impossible, technological advances have taken policy- makers way beyond the time when they had to wait until the water arrived at the Ethiopian-Sudanese border before taking depth- measurements. These can only be taken by physically going into the water. Today, satellite imaging and mathematical modeling allows specialists to make credible predictions regarding the amount of rainfall expected over the Equatorial and Ethiopian Plateaus. An advanced forecast system is the pride of the ministry.
This system, as well as the emergency spillways and five emergency teams who monitor the flood situation on the ground, are key components in the ministry's flood management strategy.
Last week, water behind the dam reached its peak and the dirt partition between Lake Nasser and the spillway was removed by the dam authority.
Still, the release of additional amounts of water may become necessary.
And, it is possible that the flood might submerge some low-lying islands. "We know where these islands are and we have already alerted their inhabitants," Abu Zeid explained. So far only some islands in the river's mainstream have been submerged. According to ministry officials, any complaints by residents are not their concern since inhabiting and cultivating these islands is banned.
In the meantime, Egypt will focus efforts on assisting Sudan in controlling the flood damage. On a recent visit to Cairo, Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Mustapha Ismail broached the prospects of Egyptian cooperation. The resources of the River Nile have long been a source of contention between the 10 countries that share the Nile Basin, particularly the three countries that share the waters of the Blue Nile, namely, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. According to the environmental research institute World Watch, the combined population of the three countries is approximately 150 million -- a figure projected to increase to a staggering 340 million by the year 2050. If comprehensive cooperation strategies between the three countries are not worked out now, fierce competition over this scarce resource are expected, especially since global economic trends are pushing for the commodification of water. For now, however, the flood and its abundance of water have submerged any anticipated conflict of interest.
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